Padres de La Patria' and The Ancestral Rebeca Earle

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Author(s): REBECCA EARLE
Article Title: Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past:
Commemorations of Independence in Nineteenth-Century Spanish
America
Year of publication: 2002
Link to published version:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=135990
&jid=LAS&volumeId=34&issueId=04&aid=135989
Publisher statement: None
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 34, 775805 f 2002 Cambridge University Press

DOI : 10.1017/S0022216X02006557 Printed in the United Kingdom
775
Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral

Past : Commemorations of Independence
in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America*
R E B E C C A E AR L E
Abstract. This article examines the civic festivals held in nineteenth-century Spanish
America to commemorate independence from Spain. Through such festivals political
leaders hoped, in Hobsbawms words, to inculcate certain values and norms of
behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past . But
when did the past begin ? If in nineteenth-century France the French Revolution was
the time of history, in Spanish America there was no consensus on when history began.
The debates about national origins embedded within the nineteenth-century civic
festival not only suggest how political elites viewed their Patrias but also shed light on
the position of indigenous culture (usually separated hygienically from indigenous
peoples themselves) within the developing national histories of post-independence
Spanish America.
In 1894 an unusual debate took place among Mexico Citys leading newspapers, prompted by an article written by Francisco Cosmes for the independence day celebrations of that year. Cosmes article was titled To Whom
Do We Owe the Fatherland? , and it was his answer that proved provocative.
Mexicos true father, Cosmes proclaimed proudly, was none other than the
conquistador Hernan Cortes : The Patria [fatherland] was born, not in 1810,
not in 1821, but on the day that Cortes, its true father, established the
foundations of Mexican nationality.1 To this assault on Miguel Hidalgos
(and Agustn de Iturbides) status as founding fathers, Cosmes appended
an extended attack on those misguided individuals who believed:
that the Mexico of today that is, a society that speaks Spanish, is civilised along
European lines, and keeps the Indian firmly under foot was conquered by Cortes
Rebecca Earle is a Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Warwick.
* Many thanks to Guy Thomson and Tony McFarlane for their help and advice, to Douglass
Sullivan-Gonzalez for drawing my attention to the richness of Guatemalan independence
day speeches, to Alvaro Fernandez Bravo for allowing me to cite from his current research,
and to the sta of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Room at the Nettie Lee Benson Library
of the University of Texas at Austin. I would also like to thank the Leverhulme Trust and
the Arts and Humanities Research Board for their financial support.
1
Observador (Francisco Cosmes), A quien debemos tener patria ?, El Partido Liberal,
Mexico, 15 Sept. 1894.
http://journals.cambridge.org
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Rebecca Earle
and dominated by the viceroys, and that independence was a vindication of the rights
of that nation defeated by the Spanish. Even today there are persons of good faith
who, like modern-day Calipsos, are inconsolable because Cuauhtemocs feet were
burned.2
The version of national history ridiculed here by Cosmes will remind readers
of contemporary Mexico, where even today Spaniards are occasionally vituperated as the torturers of the Aztec prince Cuauhtemoc, whose suerings at
the hands of Hernan Cortes are sanctified in the monumental murals of the
capitals Palacio de Bellas Artes. Cosmes, however, had little time for glorifications of the Aztecs. Mexicos civilisation, he announced, was Spanish,
owing nothing to the Aztecs, not even descending from them. Here, then,
was a challenge: a defence of Mexicos Spanish heritage, to the entire exclusion
of any indigenous legacy whatsoever. In his essay Cosmes rejected the reigning
Daz regimes concept of historia patria, which interpreted Mexican history as a
process of slow and continuous development from the Aztecs to the present.3
The response to Cosmes provocation was not long in coming. Predictably,
conservative newspapers were delighted that a liberal journal should see fit to
endorse views they had been advocating for decades. This was the first time,
proclaimed the conservative Voz de Mexico, that a liberal writer had given
voice to his race, to the glory of his race, to the history of his race. They were
particularly pleased with Cosmes attack on those who saw independence as a
vindication of the Aztec empire; patriotism, they felt, had at last abandon[ed]
the enchilada stall in favour of the church.4 It was high time, in their view, that
Mexico stopped trying to be Indian and accepted its Christian identity.
Liberal newspapers, on the other hand, were scandalised. El Siglo XIX, the
most influential liberal paper, likened Cosmes article to the scribblings of the
Spanish journalist Adolfo Llanos de Alcaraz, who in past decades had always
used the occasion of 16 September to publish some article praising the
conquistadors, denigrating our heroes, and insulting Mexicans. Llanos de
Alcaraz had been obliged to leave the country, the paper observed suggestively. El Siglo XIX noted that the bulk of Cosmes ire had been directed, not
against those who thought Miguel Hidalgo was the padre de la patria, but rather
at those who committed a grave error in the authors eyes : loving the Indian
race . That, they felt, was the real significance of his extended attack on Aztec
2
Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, was tortured by Hernan Cortes in an attempt to learn
the location of his treasure. As regards the sea-nymph Calypso, Cosmes probably had in
mind her regret at Ulysses departure from her island.
See Vicente Riva Palacio, Juan de Dios Arias, Alfredo Chavero, Jose Mara Vigil and Julio
Zarate, Resumen integral de Mexico a traves de los siglos [18879], 5 vols, (Mexico, 1968) ; Josefina
Vazquez de Knauth, Nacionalismo y educacion en Mexico (Mexico, 1970) ; Stacie Widdifield, The
Embodiment of the National in Late Nineteenth Century Mexican Painting ( Tucson, 1996) ; and
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the Worlds Fairs : Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley, 1996).
Un artculo notable del Partido Liberal, La Voz de Mexico, Mexico, 18 Sept. 1894.
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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past
777
civilisation ; Cosmess critique of the Aztecs and those who admired their
achievements was a stalking horse to attack those who advocated indigenous
rights.5 Conversely, the paper seemed to imply that a positive attitude toward
the pre-Columbian past might in itself constitute love for the Indian race.
The Monitor Republicano agreed with Cosmes that Mexican independence
was not a vindication of the Aztecs, but was unwilling to endorse his claim that
Cortes was the nations founding father. That opinion, it felt, was foolish and
unpatriotic ; the correct view was that the arrival of Cortes was part of the
slow movement of progress, of which the conquistador himself was unaware.6
El Diario del Hogar in turn maintained that Cortes, far from being Mexicos
father, was at most our step-father. In order to verify this position it asked
several notable academics to comment on Cosmes article. Their remarks
clarified nothing. The historian Ezequiel Chavez maintained that the true
founders of Mexican nationality were the Catholic missionaries who followed
in Cortes wake, and also the insurgents of 1810. Justo Sierra oered a convoluted definition of the dierence between nationality and nation, asserting that Cortes was the founder of [Mexican] nationality, while leaving to
Hidalgo the honour of being the padre de la patria.7
Cosmes responded to these criticisms by opining that his views were
evidently too advanced for their time.8 Everyone, however, agreed with his
claim that in previous decades the celebration of national independence had
been highly deficient. The invectives against Spain and the typical slogan of
three centuries of odious servitude (referring to the colonial period) that
had characterised previous celebrations of 16 September were universally
rejected as savage and unworthy.9 Everyone, moreover, accepted without
comment Cosmes framing of the question of Mexicos heritage within the
language of paternity. Who, they all asked, was Mexicos true father ?
It is not coincidental that this debate about Mexicos heritage took place
during the celebrations of 16 September, the anniversary of Miguel Hidalgos
1810 Grito de Dolores that had launched Mexicos war of independence from
Spain. Throughout the nineteenth century celebrations of Mexican independence provided an opportunity for debate about the national past. Very
often this debate was conducted in genealogical terms similar to those used in
September 1894. On these occasions Mexican speakers and writers considered
5
6
7
8
El Siglo XIX, Mexico, 20 Sept. 1894. A padre de la patria is a founding father.

Luis del Toro, Boletn, El Monitor Republicano, Mexico, 19 Sept. 1894.
El Diario del Hogar, Mexico, 23 Sept. 1894 and 30 Sept. 1894. See also 20 Sept. 1894.
Francisco Cosmes, A mis contradictores sobre la cuestion de Cortes, El Diario del Hogar,
Mexico, 23 Sept. 1894 (reprinting an article from El Partido Liberal ).
See in particular, La nacionalidad mexicana, El Diario del Hogar, Mexico, 30 Sept. 1894
(reprinted from El Obrero de Pachuca) ; and Luis del Toro, Boletn, El Monitor Republicano,
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Rebecca Earle
whether they were the sons of Hidalgo, of Cortes, or perhaps of Cuauhtemoc,

the last Aztec emperor, whose charred feet, Cosmes claimed, occupied a
disproportionate place in the minds of some Mexicans. Similar discussions
took place in many other parts of nineteenth-century Spanish America. This
article examines the nature and significance of the debates about national
origin that occurred around such commemorations during the first hundred
years after independence from Spain. These debates reveal clearly the
changing position of the pre-Columbian and colonial periods within the idea
of the national past. In the speeches delivered by ocial orators, in newspaper
accounts such as those cited above, and in the ceremonial itself we can see the
ways in which dierent aspects of the past were (or were not) incorporated
into national history. This not only tells us a great deal about the ways in which
the political elite viewed their Patrias; it also sheds light on the position of
indigenous culture (usually separated hygienically from indigenous peoples
themselves) within the developing national histories of nineteenth century
Spanish America.
This article forms part of a larger study of national memory in nineteenth
century Spanish America which draws not only on civic festivals, but also
on such sources as postage stamps and museum exhibits. The conclusions
derived from the examination of civic festivals should thus be seen as one
element in a larger whole, as one of many possible roads to the same
destination. While following this particular route we will have the opportunity
to observe some interesting and distinctive features of the landscape that
would not be visible from other paths. Civic festivals the states commemoration of events deemed of national importance are occasions on
which the state presents an ocial view of itself. Through civic festivals such
as the commemorations of independence from Spain held across nineteenthcentury Spanish America, political leaders hoped to create, in Hobsbawms
words, a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted
rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values
and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity
with the past.10 The diculty in the case of nineteenth-century Spanish
America lay, as the 1894 Cosmes debate suggests, in determining the particular
aspect of the past with which continuity was sought. In Spanish America
dierent, and potentially conflicting, heritages jostled for recognition. No
single point of origin received unanimous ocial endorsement. In contrast
with France, where virtually all post-revolutionary governments have defined
themselves in relation to the French Revolution, in Spanish America there
10
Eric Hobsbawn, Introduction : Inventing Traditions, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence

Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1992), p. 1. The view that festivals in themselves
are significant sites of meaning also owes much to Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French
Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1988).
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were competing originary moments, ranging from the distant pre-Columbian

past to the break from Spain in the early 1810s, or even to more recent events.
If in nineteenth-century France the French Revolution was the time of history,
in Spanish America there was no such consensus on when history began.11
*
Civic festivals in independent Spanish America were held to mark many
dierent events, most often military victories.12 In 1922 Ecuador commemorated the centenary of Antonio Jose de Sucres victory over the royalists
at the Battle of Pichincha; from 1864 the defeat of the French at Puebla on
5 May 1862 was celebrated in parts of Mexico.13 Festivals were sometimes held
to mark the birth or death of men (almost invariably) whom the state wished
to honour. In Venezuela Simon Bolvars name-day was made into a national
holiday under Antonio Guzman Blanco, a move anticipated by the Bolivian
national congress by almost fifty years, which in 1825 made Bolvars birthday
a date of national celebration.14 The earliest and most long-lived festivals were
those held to commemorate the war of independence from Spain. Within a
year the 1810 May Revolution in Buenos Aires was being memorialised in a
civic festival that became an annual Porteno event. (Outside Buenos Aires 9
11
12
13
14
For the French Revolution as a time of history, see James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social
Memory (Oxford, 1992), p. 128; and Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge,
1989). See also Pierre Nora (ed.), Les lieux de memoire, 3 vols (Paris, 198492).
There is a small but growing historiography on nineteenth-century civic festivals in Spanish
America, which concentrates largely on Mexico. See Javier Ocampo, Las ideas de un da: el
pueblo mexicano ante la consumacion de su independencia (Mexico, 1969) ; Annick Lemperie`re, Los
dos centenarios de la independencia mexicana (19101921) : de la historia patria a la antropologa cultural, Historia Mexicana, vol. 45 :2 (1990) ; Georges Lomne, Revolution
francaise et rites bolivariens : Examen dune transposition de la symbolique republicaine,
Cahiers des Ameriques Latines, vol. 10 (new series) (1990) also published in Spanish as La
Revolucion Francesa y la simbolica de los ritos bolivarianos, Historia Crtica : Revista del
Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de los Andes, vol. 5 (1991) ; Pedro Enrique Calzadilla,
El IV centenario en Venezuela y el fin del matricidio, in Luis Cipriano Rodrguez (ed.), Los
grandes perodos y temas de la historia de Venezuela (V Centenario) (Caracas, 1993) ; Annick Lemperie`re, Nacion moderna o republica barroca : Mexico-18231857, Cuadernos de Historia
Latinoamericana, no. 2: Imaginar la Nacion, Francois Xavier Guerra and Monica Quijada (eds.)
(1994) ; Robert Duncan, Embracing a Suitable Past: Independence Celebrations under
Mexicos Second Empire, 18646, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 30 (1998) ; Pedro
Enrique Calzadilla, El olor de la polvora. Fiestas patrias, memoria y Nacion en la Venezuela
guzmancista, 18701877, Caravelle, no. 73 (1999) ; and William Beezley and David Lorey
(eds), Viva Mexico ! Viva la Independencia ! Celebrations of September 16 (Wilmington, 2000).
Archbishop Manuel Mara Polit Laso, Alocucion y auto _ con motivo del primer centenario de
la batalla de Pichincha (Quito, 1922) ; Luis Salgado, Homenaje a Sucre en el primer centenario de la
batalla de Pichincha, 18221922 (Quito, 1922) ; and Composiciones patrioticas que se leyeron en esta
capital para celebrar el segundo aniversario del 5 de mayo de 1862 (Durango, 1864).
Calzadilla, El olor de la polvora, p. 115; and Session of 8 Aug. 1825, Libro mayor de sesiones
de la Asamblea de Representantes del Alto Peru (La Paz, 1926), pp. 446. The Bolivian decree was
to take eect only after Bolvars death.
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Rebecca Earle
July, the date of the Congress of Tucumans 1816 declaration of independence,

became the preferred holiday.)15 Mexican insurgents declared 16 September a
national holiday in 1812, although I have found no record of actual celebration
prior to 1825. The definitive triumph of 16 September, the date of Hidalgos
1810 Grito de Dolores, over 27 September, the date of Iturbides 1821 entry
into Mexico City, as the countrys ocial independence day did not occur until
1857, and throughout the nineteenth century 27 September continued to be
celebrated as a secondary (or occasionally primary) holiday by those who
preferred to remember the Iturbidista phase of independence. Almost invariably, those who chose to commemorate 27 September were associated
with the conservative party.16 12 October, the date of Columbus 1492 arrival
in the West Indies, had by the early twentieth century been declared an ocial
holiday in many Spanish American countries, where it was celebrated as the
Da de la Raza, in an implicit assertion that the Spanish American race had an
Iberian origin.17 The events commemorated, and the dates on which commemorations were held, in themselves thus reveal much about which aspects
of the past were deemed worthy of ocial recognition.
The nineteenth-century fiesta cvica with its fireworks, raes, religious
services, distributions of alms, and patriotic speeches (the latter often printed
in newspapers or in specially-produced commemorative booklets) drew on
several sources of inspiration.18 First, these festivals continued a colonial
15
16
17
18
Romulo Zabala, Historia de la Piramide de Mayo, (Buenos Aires, 1962), 29 ; Gazeta Ministerial del
Gobierno de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, 24 March 1813 ; and Alvaro Fernandez Bravo,
Material Memories : Tradition and Amnesia in Two Argentine Museums, conference
paper, Iconographies of Power, Institute of Latin American Studies, London, May 2001.
For an overview of the 16 September/27 September debate, see Edmundo OGorman,
Discurso de Ingreso : Hidalgo en la historia, Memorias de la Academia Mexicana de Historia,
vol. 23 :3 (1964) ; and Isabel Fernandez Tejedo and Carmen Nava Nava, Images of Independence in the Nineteenth Century : The Grito de Dolores, History and Myth, in Beezley
and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico ! Viva la Independencia !, p. 31. For examples of post-1857
commemorations of 27 Sept., see Manuel Ramrez de Arellano, Oracion cvica en la Alameda de
Mexico el da 27 de setiembre (henceforth set.) de 1859 (Mexico, 1859) ; Juan N. Pastor, Discurso
pronunciado (henceforth pron.) en la Alameda de este capital el da 27 de septiembre
(henceforth sept.) de 1863, El Pajaro Verde, Mexico, 30 Sept. 1863 ; and El Pas, Mexico, 27
Sept. 1900. For the 1825 celebrations in Mexico City see Andres Pantret, Alusion al grito de
Dolores. Bailes alegoricos, 16 Sept. 1825 (Mexico, 1825) ; Juan Wenceslao Barquera, Oracion
patriotica, 16 Sept. 1825 (Mexico, 1825) ; and Funcion patriotica o gran solemnidad para
celebrar el aniversario del glorioso grito de la independencia mexicana, 1825, Benson
Library, Austin, Discursos Cvicos, serv. 25, Reel 313.
See Memorandum no. 4 on Da de la Raza, 12 Oct. 1915, Archivo General de la Nacion,
Buenos Aires, Coleccion Dardo Rocha 3001; and Fredrick Pike, Hispanismo, 18981936 :
Spanish Conservatives and Liberals and their Relations with Spanish America (Notre Dame,
1971), p. 173.
Particularly fine collections of Mexican and Guatemalan discursos cvicos are preserved in the
Nettie Lee Benson Library at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Coleccion Lafragua
of the Biblioteca Nacional, Mexico. A fiesta cvica is a civic festival, while a discurso cvico is
a patriotic speech delivered at such events.
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tradition. Events such as the arrival of a new viceroy or the birth of a Spanish
prince were commemorated in the colonies with lavish parades, speeches, and
other festivities. In addition to these irregular events, annual festivals such as
the parading of the royal flag punctuated the colonial year.19 During the early
republican period, the influence of colonial festive traditions was clearly visible
in the newly-created civic festivals. Thus in 1821 many Mexicans swore independence from Spain in front of paintings of King Ferdinand VII, while a
decade earlier they might have sworn loyalty in front of an identical image.20
The influence of the colonial ceremony continued to be felt many years after
independence; in 1872 during the celebration of 16 September in one Mexican
town, a portrait of Hidalgo was displayed in the same way as a portrait of the
king.21 In independent Honduras the colonial paseo del pendon , the ceremonial
parading of the royal standard that commemorated Spanish rule, was replaced
by the paseo del pabellon nacional, the parading of the national flag.22 Through
this sort of substitution the republican (or, as in the case of 1821 Mexico,
imperial) festival sought to replace the colonial festivals that were abolished
across Spanish America in the years following independence.23
An equally important influence on republican civic festivals was the calendar of religious festivals such as Corpus Christi, which continued to be
celebrated across Spanish America after independence, and which provided a
highly visible model of a festival from which Spanish American governments
could draw inspiration. In mid-century Mexico republican festivals might
coincide with Catholic holidays, much as colonial cathedrals had been superimposed on the ruins of Aztec temples :
16 September 1840 _ The streets of La Merced displayed more than the usual
number of lanterns in its balconies and doorways, not precisely because that day was
the thirtieth anniversary of our independence, but rather because on that same day
began the novenary of Our Lady of Mercy.24
19
20
21
22
23
24
For discussion of colonial festivals, see the special issue of The Americas, vol. 52 :3 (1996),
dedicated to spectacle in colonial Mexico ; Jaime Valenzuela Marquez, Rituales y fetiches polticos en Chile colonial : entre el sello de la Audiencia y el pendon del Cabildo,
Anuario de Estudios Americanos, vol. 56 (1999) ; and Caravelle, no. 73 (1999), devoted to la fete
en America Latine.
Ocampo, Las ideas de un da, p. 15.
Programa de la Junta Patriotica para las festividades cvicas de los das 15 y 16 de set. de 1872 (San
Luis Potos, 1872). Or see Sergio Alejandro Canedo Gamboa, The First Independence
Celebrations in San Luis Potos, 18241847 in Beezley and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico ! Viva la
Independencia !, p. 80 ; and Lemperie`re, Nacion moderna o republica barroca, p. 160.
Las fiestas de septiembre, Gaceta de Honduras, 15 Oct. 1877, in Ramon Rosa, Oro de
Honduras : Antologa, ( Tegucigalpa, 1993), pp. 2778.
For such abolition see, for example, Peruvian legislation from 1822 in Coleccion Documental
de la Independencia del Peru, (Lima, 1971), tomo 13, vol. 1, pp. 5358.
Jose de Cuellar, Historia de Chucho el ninfo, cited in Lemperie`re, Nacion moderna o republica
barroca, p. 159.
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Rebecca Earle
The use of religious festivals as a model was sometimes recognised explicitly;

in 1839 the government of the ephemeral Estado de los Altos in Guatemala
ordered that civic festivals should be celebrated in the same fashion as
religious holidays .25 Out of these dierent ingredients Spanish American
governments constructed events which commemorated neither imperial
Spanish rule nor Catholicism. The new civic festivals instead commemorated
the Patria, through its founding and formative events. The first attempts at
establishing the Patrias ancestry took place in the very earliest civic festivals
those held during and immediately after the war of independence.
The Festivals of Independence
The most explicit purpose of civic festivals organised under Spanish rule
was the commemoration of Spain and its colonial enterprise. The birth of
princes, the coronation of monarchs, and the founding of colonial cities were
all marked with parades, fireworks, allegorical floats, speeches and church
services. Spains evangelising mission was applauded in tableaux and parades,
which celebrated the arrival of the gospel in the new world. Indians, essential
components of this event, were during the eighteenth century incorporated
into festivals in order to illustrate the grandeur of Spains achievement in
christianising the Americas. A 1748 fiesta de los naturales in Lima thus included
indigenous figures clothed in feathers who celebrated with flutes and whistles
their happy subjugation to Catholicism.26
25
26
Asamblea Constituyente del Estado de los Altos, 24 Jan. 1839, in Arturo Taracena Arriola,
Invencion criolla, sueno ladino, pesadillo indgena: los Altos de Guatemala : de region a estado, 1740185
(San Jose, 1997), pp. 2378. See also General Juan Suarez y Navarro, Oracion cvica pronunciada
(henceforth pron.) en la capital de Mexico el da 11 de sept. de 1853 (Mexico, 1853). Republican
governments would not always have agreed with this assessment of their festivals ancestry.
In Mexico, for example, patriotic orators often traced the origins of civic festivals not to the
colonial period, but rather to classical Greece and Rome. See Juan Francisco de Azcarate,
Elogio patriotico, 16 Sept. 1826 (Mexico, 1826); Juan Wenceslao Barquera, Discurso patriotico _ en el aniversario del primer grito de nuestra independencia solemnizado en la ciudad de Toluca
( Toluca, 1830) ; Jose Mara Heredia, Discurso pron. en la festividad cvica de Toluca el 16 de set. de 1836
(Mexico, 1836) ; and Jose Mara Revilla y Pedreguera, Oracion funebre pron. en la Alameda
de Mexico el da 28 de sept. de 1850, Coleccion : Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciadas en los
gloriosos aniversarios de nuestra independencia el mes de sept. de 1850 (Mexico, 1850).
Karine Perissat, Les festivites dynastiques a` Lima : la celebration dune histoire locale,
Caravelle, no. 73 (1999), pp. 767. Indigenous participation in both civic and religious
festivals, and the meaning of such participation, is discussed in Luis Millones, The Inkas
Mask : Dramatisation of the Past in Indigenous Colonial Processions, in Penny Dransart
(ed.), Andean Art : Visual Expression and its Relation to Andean Beliefs and Values (Aldershot,
1995) ; Carolyn Dean, Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ : Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru
(Durham, 1999) ; David Cahill, The Inca and Inca Symbolism in Popular Festive Culture :
The Religious Processions of Seventeenth-Century Cuzco, in Peter Bradley and David
Cahill, Hapsburg Peru : Images, Imagination and Memory (Liverpool, 2000) ; and Karine Perissat,
Los Incas representados (Limasiglo XVIII) : Supervivencia o renacimiento ?, Revista de
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In addition to celebrating the ongoing colonial relationship between Spain

and the Americas, particularly as embodied in the figure of the catechised
Indian, colonial festivals might also display signs of incipient creole nationalism
through the eulogising of the conquistadors. Civic festivals in early eighteenthcentury Lima, for example, made much of great Cortes and Pizarro, who
exceeded the Romans in service to their kings.27 Such comparisons with
ancient Rome signalled the existence of an American epic tradition similar to,
or indeed greater than, that of European classical antiquity. Colonial festivals
thus commemorated both Spanish rule, and, to a less ocial extent, creole
heritage. While the festivals of independence derived aspects of their structure from colonial festivals, their ideological content stood in stark contrast to these colonial celebrations of the conquest and the conquistadors.
The nationalist subtext implicit in eighteenth century attempts at creating
a local heroic tradition became explicit in early republican festivals, but the
heroes had changed. Replacing Spain and the discredited conquistadors were
Indians.
Throughout independence-era Spanish America, Indians, or more often
allegorical figures representing Indians, were incorporated into insurgent
celebrations, in which they played a role entirely dierent from that in the
colonial festival. Instead of commemorating Spains triumphant victory over
paganism, the insurgent Indian emblemised the injustice of colonial rule and
the legitimacy of American independence.28 Thus the 1821 celebrations
of the Oath of Independence in Mexico City included tableaux vivants
of indigenous figures armed with bows, arrows and the Aztec war axe, or
macana. In Ayapango seven little Indian girls with sword in hand headed
the parade. In San Miguel el Grande (now San Miguel de Allende) the
celebratory procession included not only allegorical figures representing
fame, but also 200 Indians dressed as Chichimecs, with bows, arrows, and
feather head-dresses, carrying flags incongruously adorned with Aztec-style
27
28
Indias, vol. 60 :220 (2000). For a Mexican example, see Nancy Fee, La Entrada Angelopolitana : Ritual and Myth in the Viceregal Entry in Puebla de los Angeles, The Americas,
vol. 52:3 (1996), p. 288, for Indians being paid four pesos each to participate, dressed as
Chichimecs, in a 1640 festival.
Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, Jubilos de Lima y fiestas reales (1723), cited in Perissat, Les
festivites dynastiques a` Lima, p. 73. See also pp. 736. For a discussion of creole
nationalism, see David Brading, The First America, the Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the
Liberal State, 14921867 (Cambridge, 1991) ; and Anthony Pagden, Identity Formation in
Spanish America, in Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden (eds.), Colonial Identity in the
Atlantic World, 15001800 (Princeton, 1987).
For further comment on the Indian as a symbol of American independence, see Rebecca
Earle, Creole Patriotism and the Myth of the Loyal Indian , Past and Present, vol. 172
(2001).
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hieroglyphs.29 In Buenos Aires, the 1811 commemoration of the May Revolution featured dancers dressed as Spaniards and Americans , the Spaniards wrapped in togas and the Americans with coloured feathers at their
waist and head like Indians. One of the American dancers was led away in
chains by dancers dressed as soldiers, only to be released later amid general
rejoicing.30 A year later, celebration of the failure of the counter-revolutionary
lzaga included four children dressed as Indians who sang
conspiracy led by A
from time to time various songs in harmony.31 In Lima, the spirit of Peru,
represented by the Inca Viracocha garbed in the attributes of the [Inca]
empire, accompanied by women dressed as Sun Virgins, marked Bolvars
entry into the city in 1825.32
The speeches and commemorative poetry read at such festivals likewise
confirmed the importance of the indigenous past as a justification for independence. While the Spanish conquest had earlier manifested the legitimacy of
colonial rule, now it became proof of its illegitimacy. Denunciations of the
conquest and the suering it imposed on Americans, symbolically represented as Indians, was a frequent element of independence-era festivals.
Poetry read at the 1825 celebrations of Bolvars arrival in Cuzco eulogised
Bolvars entry into the court of the Incas _ breaking chains/they bore for
three hundred years.33 Porteno independence was described during the
festivities of May 1815 as the recovery of ancient rights . We again possess
our fecund America, which was taken from our fathers [by the] tyrannical
Spanish invasion , announced the creole priest Pedro Ignacio de Castro
Barros.34 In his 1827 oration marking 16 September, the Mexican creole Jose
29
30
31
32
33
34
Ocampo, Las ideas de un da, pp. 1517.

Zabala, Historia de la Piramide de Mayo, 29.
Tulio Halpern Donghi, Politics, Economics and Society in Argentina in the Revolutionary Period,
(Cambridge, 1975), 164. See also Relacion de las fiestas mayas de Buenos Aires en el present
ano de 1813, in Augusto E. Mallie (ed.), La revolucion de mayo a traves de los impresos de la epoca,
primera serie, 18091815, 6 vols (Buenos Aires, 1965), vol. 2, pp. 2336 ; and Jose Emilio
Burucua and Fabian Alejandro Campagne, Los pases del Cono Sur, in Antonio Annino,
Luis Castro Leiva and Francois-Xavier Guerra (eds.), De los imperios a las naciones: Iberoamerica
(Zaragoza, 1994), p. 363.
Lomne, Revolution francaise et rites bolivariens, pp. 1679. For more sun virgins, see
Blanca Muratorio, Images of Indians in the Construction of Ecuadorian Identity at the
End of the Nineteenth Century, in William Beezley and Linda Curcio-Nagy (eds.),
Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction (Wilmington, 2000), p. 106.
Tercera Corrida de Toros _ en obsequio de _ Simon Bolvar, 17 July 1825, in Aurelio
Mira Quesada Sosa (ed.), La poesa de la emancipacion, Coleccion Documental de la Independencia del
Peru, tomo XXIV (Lima, 1971), p. 496.
Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros, Oracion patriotica _ en el solemne 25 de mayo de 1815,
Tucuman, El clero argentino de 1810 a 1830, 2 vols (Buenos Aires, 1907), vol. 1, pp. 10714.
Or see Domingo Victorino de Achega, Discurso pron. en la catedral de Buenos Aires,
May 1813, in El clero argentino, vol. 1, p. 47 ; and El Censor, Buenos Aires, 30 May 1818.
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Mara Tornel likewise denounced the conquest for having disturbed the peace
of my fathers.35 The losses suered by our fathers the Indians, such
speeches implied, were avenged through independence. These festivals thus
made clear that the continents history began prior to the conquest, when its
inhabitants had enjoyed the wise and paternal government of the Aztecs,
Incas, and Araucanians, the three indigenous groups usually employed in
independence-era festivals to represent idyllic pre-conquest America. Until
the conquest, explained Esteban Soto in his 1816 speech marking the May
Revolution in Buenos Aires, America under the rule of the great Motezuma
and the celebrated Atahualpa had been governed by its own laws, as wise,
politic and orderly as those of Crete, Sparta, Rome and Greece.36 In the
festivals of the independence era, in contrast with the colonial festival, it was
the Aztec and Inca empires, rather than the deeds of the conquistadors, which
compared favourably with ancient Greece and Rome. The festivals of the
independence era thus diered from those of the colonial period in their
distinctive use of the Indian as an emblem of independence, rather than
colonialism. They moreover implied that the newly-independent American
states could trace their ancestry back to the pre-conquest period, before the
defeat of our fathers at the hands of the conquistadors. A bond of metaphorical ancestry united nineteenth-century Spanish America with the continents pre-conquest civilisations. Spains role, on the other hand, was entirely
negative.
This version of history, which we may call the indianesque, persisted in
Mexico for several decades after independence. Its use was particularly associated with the nascent liberal party, although in fact persons of all political
persuasions continued to employ aspects of the form for many years to
come.37 In pre-Reform Mexico the view that history began with the Aztecs
35
36
37
Jose Mara Tornel, Oracion pron _ [el ] 16 de sept. de 1827 (Mexico, 1827). Or see Barquera,
Oracion patriotica; and Jose Mara Heredia, Oracion pron. en el ultimo aniversario del grito de
independencia nacional, Cuernavaca ( Tlalpan, 1828).
Juan Esteban Soto, Discurso patriotico, 25 May 1816, Buenos Aires, El clero argentino, vol.
1, 1667. Or see Fray Pantaleon Garca, Proclama sagrada dicha _ el 25 de mayo de 1814,
Cordoba, El clero argentino, vol. 1, pp. 912; Julian Segundo de Aguero, Oracion patriotica,
25 May 1817, Buenos Aires, El clero argentino, vol. 1, 1815 ; Arenga, Buenos Aires,
25 May 1825, in Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires, Coleccion Sanchez de
Bustamante, 3026 (leg. 2), doc. 90 ; Jose Mara Pando, Elogio patriotico _ [ pron.] el 16 de sept.
de 1827 (Oaxaca, 1827) ; and Tornel, Oracion pron _ [el] 16 de sept. de 1827.
For example, during Maximilians occupation of Mexico City, sympathetic journalists
described him as the saviour of the continent of Anahuac . (Periodico Oficial del Imperio
Mexicano, Mexico, 9 Aug. 1864; Luis Gutierrez Otero, Discurso pron. en la ciudad de
Guadalajara _ el 16 de set. de 1864, Periodico Oficial del Imperio Mexicano, Mexico, 6 Oct.
1864, for Mexico City as Moctezumas capital ; and Ignacio Michel, Discurso pron. _ el 16
de set. de 1865 (Durango, 1865), for Mexicans as the Moctezumas grandsons . See also
Duncan, Embracing a Suitable Past, pp. 2634.)
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(if not earlier) was frequently advanced in the patriotic speeches delivered
at celebrations of 16 September. Liberal use of the indianesque on these
occasions contrasts with the lack of interest in the pre-Columbian period
displayed by individuals such as Jose Mara Luis Mora in their political
writings, and suggests that pre-Reform liberals were not as uninterested in the
indigenous past as Charles Hale has claimed.38 At independence-day celebrations liberal orators praised pre-conquest Mexico as a terrestrial paradise :
Hernan Cortes plies the waves in the ship of his ambition, propelled by the winds of
his pride, and sights a new world, whose innocent inhabitants until that moment lived
peacefully in their dwellings enjoying the finest fruits of the soil. The trees were
inhabited by a thousand colourful birds which happily sang out their freedom. The
fields were sown with exquisite flowers, which tinted the emerald green with which
nature garbed them ; their fragrance and odour perfumed the air. The waters that ran
in the brooks were crystalline ; the lamb enjoyed them without thinking of the Wolf
that wished to devour it. Over the roofs of our ancestors simple dwellings the
beautiful sun shone its brilliant rays _ And all was happiness !39
The passing of these great civilisations was presented in independence-day

poetry as a tragedy of epic proportions :
Xicotel, Teutile, Cualpopoca,
And you, Cuauhtemoc! _ Sacred shades !
Where are your sons _ ? Where do they dwell? _
Alas, it has all ended _ ! Tlaxcala has fallen,
Mexico has succumbed and Zempoala.
Chained are
Beautiful Yucatan and Tabasco,
And the virgin Cuibo whose sands are gold,
And holy Cholula.
Ruin and destruction surrounds all.
Tucapel and Moctezuma are no more.
Dead are Rengo and Colocolo _ Now remain
Of that glorious history
Only sad memories.40
38
39
40
Charles Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven, 1968), 21621.
David Brading likewise implies that the creole patriotism of such well-known independence-era figures as Carlos Mara de Bustamante was discarded in the decades following
independence. See, for example, Brading, The First America, 645; and David Brading, The
Origins of Mexican Nationalism (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 74, 88.
Jose Mara Brito, Discurso pron. _ el 6 de sept. de 1851 (Mexico, 1851) ; and El Universal, Mexico,
30 Sept. 1851.
Canto epico, in Poesas cvicas en honor de los aniversarios de la independencia de Mexico (Mexico ?,
1850 ?). Note the pan-American horizon of this verse, which laments the passing not only of
Mexicos precolumbian civilisations, but also the defeat of the Araucanians in Chile. Or see
Francisco Espana, Poesa recitada en tarde del 17 de sept. de 1850 _ en Morelia, A Hidalgo, in
Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciados en varios puntos de la republica (Mexico ?, 1850 ?), p. 230.
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Orators lamented the defeat by the conquistadors of our ancestors the

Indians and continued to decry Spains usurpation of the Aztec empire and
the imposition of three centuries of slavery, as the colonial period was generally described.41 A number asserted that it was not necessary to elaborate on
this theme, as the horrors of the conquest were already suciently well known.
I will not detail the cruelties of our inhumane conquerors because that history
is too well known, explained one 1829 speaker.42 Independence therefore
41
42
Francisco Enciso, Oracion cvica _ [ pron] en la capital _ de Oaxaca el 16 de sept. de 1846 (Oaxaca,
1846), p. 5. For Mexico City, see Juan Rodrguez, Oracion patriotica [ pron] _ el 25 de set. de 1829
en la Alameda de Mexico (Mexico, 1829) ; Jose de Jesus Huerta, Discurso Patriotico pron. el 4 de
octubre de 1833, da en que se solemnizo la fiesta nacional del 16 de set. (Mexico, 1833); Jose Mara
Castaneda y Escalada, Oracion cvica _ [pron] en la Alameda de la Ciudad Federal _ el 16 de sept.
de 1834 (Mexico, 1834) ; Antonio Pacheco Leal, Discurso pron _ en la capital de la Republica
Mexicana el 16 de set. de 1835 (Mexico, 1835) ; Jose Mara Aguilar de Bustamante, Discurso pron. en
la plazuela principal de la Alameda de la capital de la Republica Mexicana _ el 16 de sept. de 1836
(Mexico, 1837) ; Pantaleon Tovar, Discurso cvico _ [pron.] la noche del 15 de sept. de 1850, in
Coleccion: Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciadas en los gloriosos aniversarios de nuestra independencia el mes de sept. de 1850 (Mexico, 1850), p. 14; Francisco Granados Maldonado, Elogio
funebre que en memoria de los heroes de la indepencia mexicana pronuncio _ en la Alameda de Mexico el
da 27 de sept. de 1850, in Discursos pronunciados el 27 y 28 de sept. de 1850 en la capital de Mexico
(Mexico ?, 1850?), p. 44. For Acapulco, see Manuel Dublan, Oracion patriotica, Acapulco, 16
Sept. 1831 (Mexico, 1831). For Durango, see Jose de la Barcena Discurso pron. _ el da 16
de set. de 1832, Aniversario del glorioso grito de libertad lanzado en Dolores el da 16 de sept. de 1810
(Durango, 1832) ; Pedro Jose Olvera, Oracion cvica pron. en el palacio de gobierno de Durango el 16 de
sept. de 1845 (Victoria de Durango, 1845). For Guadalajara, see Col. Lic. J.J.C., discurso _ en la
solemnizacion del aniversario del glorioso da 16 de set. de 1845 [pron.] en la universidad de este capital
(Guadalajara, 1845), p. 5. For Jalapa, see Ramon M. Teran, Oracion cvica que en la solemnidad del
da 16 de set. pronuncio en la ciudad de Jalapa ( Jalapa, 1843). For Monterrey, see Luis Gonzaga
Martnez, Discurso patriotico pron. en la plaza principal de la ciudad de Monterrey _ el 16 de set. de 1831
(Monterrey, 1831). For Oaxaca, see Genobro Marquez, Discurso cvico _ [pron.] el da 27 de
sept. de 1844 _ en la capital del departamento de Oaxaca (Oaxaca, 1844), p. 5; Francisco Rincon,
Arenga cvica que el 16 de sept. de 1845 _ pronuncio _ en la ciudad de Oaxaca (Oaxaca, 1845). For
Orizaba, see Juan Villarello, Oracion cvica que en la solemnidad del 16 de sept. de 1850 pronuncio en
Orizaba, in Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciados en varios puntos de la republica, p. 62. For
Puebla, see Bernardo Mara del Callejo, Discurso patriotico que en la plaza principal de la capital de
Puebla _ pron _ el 16 de sept. de 1829 (Puebla, 1829). For San Luis Potos, see Ygnacio
Sepulveda, Oracion patriotica que en la tarde del da 16 de set. pronuncio _ en la plaza mayor de la
capital del Estado de San Luis Potos (San Luis Potos, 1827); Luis Gonzaga Gordoa, Discurso
patriotico [ pron.] en la plaza mayor de San Luis Potos _ el 15 de set. de 1831 (San Luis Potos) ; and
Canedo Gamboa, The First Independence Celebrations in San Luis Potos, Beezley and
Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico ! Viva la Independencia !, p. 81. For Veracruz, see Juan Soto, Discurso
cvico que para solemnizar el grato da del aniversario de 1837 compuso ( Veracruz, 1837). For
Zacatecas, see Aniversario del glorioso grito de Dolores (Zacatecas, 1829).
Jose Mara Herrera, Oracion patriotica _ en la plazuela principal de la alameda de Mexico _ 16 de
sept. de 1829 (Mexico, 1829), p. 3. Similar sentiments were expressed by Manuel Daz Mirom,
Discurso que pronuncio en el solemne aniversario del glorioso grito de Dolores (Veracruz, 1842) ; Teran,
Oracion cvica ; Jose Ignacio Laurenzana, Oracion cvica pron. en el palacio del gobierno de Durango el
da 16 de sept. de 1843 (Victoria de Durango, 1843), p. 4; Olvera, Oracion cvica, 4 ; and Manuel
Gomera y Pina, Discurso encomiastico pron. _ en el pueblo de Jilotepec la noche del
da 15 de sept. de 1850, in Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciados en varios puntos de la
republica, p. 13.
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avenged the Aztecs; its leaders were Mocteuzomas worthy ospring , the
sons of Anahuac.43 Similar views were expressed on 15 September, the date
chosen to commemorate independence, by patriotic orators in Central
America during periods of liberal rule in the 1830s to 1850s.44
This was the version of history denounced as savage by the participates in
the 1894 debate with which this article began. Insistence on a genealogical link,
albeit metaphorical, with the indigenous past, and overt hostility to Spain, the
two most striking features of the indianesque discurso cvico, had by 1894 been
discarded, at least in Mexico, by writers of all political persuasions. If Spanish
Americans were not the sons of Montezuma, whose children were they?
Other Ancestors
By the 1840s the dierent political and economic tendencies arising from
independence had solidified into political parties in most parts of Spanish
America. Historians have often attempted to map political aliation onto
social, regional or economic categories; Vctor Uribe-Uran, for example, has
recently suggested that political aliation in Colombia reflected disagreements between Bogotanos and provincials.45 Alongside exploring the evolution of party politics we might also explore how political aliation correlated
with attitudes towards national history. Although as we shall see shortly those
associated with liberalism in dierent Spanish American countries shared no
consensus on the question of national origin, conservatives from across
Spanish America held nearly identical views on this issue. This meant that the
speeches delivered at independence-day celebrations by conservative orators
in Mexico closely resembled those delivered by conservatives in Guatemala
43
44
45
Francisco Manuel Sanchez de Tagle and Mariano Elzaga, Himno cvico (Mexico, 1827) ; Luis
Guzman, Discurso que pronuncio en la plaza mayor de San Luis Potos el 16 de set. de 1828 (San Luis
Potos, 1828) ; Francisco Manuel Sanchez de Tagle, Arenga cvica que en el 16 de sept. de
1830 _ pronuncio _ en la plaza mayor de Mejico (Mexico, 1830) ; poetry in Aniversario del glorioso
grito de libertad lanzado en Dolores el da 16 de sept. de 1810 (Durango, 1832) ; Aguilar de Bustamante, Discurso pron. en la plazuela principal de la Alameda, p. 11; Olvera, Oracion cvica, 4; Juan
Miguel de Lozada, Gloria y libertad, in Poesas cvicas en honor de los aniversarios de la independencia de Mexico (Mexico ?, 1850 ?), p. 5; and Himno patriotico, in Composiciones en prosa y
verso pronunciadoa en varios puntos de la Republica, p. 218.
S.D. M.M., Discurso pron. el 15 de set. de 1847 (San Salvador, 1847) ; Lorenzo Montufar y Rivera
Maestre, Discurso escrito por el _ XIL aniversario de la independencia, 15 Sept. 1862 (San Salvador,
1862 ?); and Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez, Piety, Power and Politics: Religion and National
Formation in Guatemala, 18211871 (Pittsburgh, 1998), p. 62. In Guatemala, during Rafael
Carreras brief rapprochement with the liberals in 1844, patriotic orators adopted the
indianesque in their independence day speeches. See Manuel Zacaras Velazquez, Discurso
poltico-religioso _ [pron. el] 15 de set. de 1844 (Guatemala, 1844) ; and Independence ode, 1844,
Benson Library, Taracena Flores Collection.
Vctor Uribe-Uran, Honorable Lives : Lawyers, Family and Politics in Colombia, 17801850
(Pittsburgh, 2000).
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and Peru. Rejecting the independence-era idea that their Patrias dated back to
pre-conquest days, conservative orators used the occasion of the civic festival
to suggest that birth, or at least conception, occurred not in the distant preColumbian past, but rather in 1492, with Columbuss arrival in the Americas
(or possibly a few years later, depending on the speed with which Spains
civilising influence was thought to spread). This was the opinion of the
conservative Peruvian priest Bartolome Herrera, who in his 1846 sermon on
Peruvian independence explained that, following Perus birth at the time of the
conquest, it had enjoyed a happy childhood under Spains maternal care: for
three centuries the motherland carried us in her arms . The Republic of Peru
was thus not conquered but created by the conquest .46 Similar views were
expressed roughly two decades later in Guatemala by another priest, who, on
the occasion of Guatemalas independence day, asserted that during the
colonial period the infant America had sat contentedly in the Motherlands
lap . Like Herrera, he regarded Colombuss arrival in the Americas as the
beginning of history: here, gentlemen, is the first day of our appearance in the
life of nations.47 This was essentially the same view advanced by the Voz
de Mexico in 1894.
Particularly characteristic of the conservative discurso cvico was an extended
complaint about the prevalence of the sort of anti-Spanish indianesque speech
discussed above. Conservative orators often drew attention to the fact that
their speeches would omit inappropriate denunciations of the conquest.
What good would it do us today to speak of the cruelties of Pizarro and
Cortes ? To declaim pointlessly, to perorate vainly and needlessly? , asked
the Guatemalan Jose Milla in 1846.48 In the same year the Mexican conservative Antonio G. del Palacio explained in his 16 September oration: Gone
are the days in which celebrating independence meant arousing your ire
against your fathers, because _ why confuse ourselves? Our ancestors are
the descendants of the conquistadors.49 Since we are the ospring of
46
47
48
49
Bartolome Herrera, Sermon pron. _ el da 28 de julio de 1846 aniversario de la independencia del Peru
(Lima, 1846) pp. 4, 7, 156.
Jose Antonio Urrutia, Discurso religioso pron. en la Santa Iglesia Catedral _ el 15 de sept. de 1868
(Guatemala, 1868). Or see Jesus Ruelas, Discursos pronunciados _ la noche del 16 de set.
de 1851, La Esperanza, Mexico, 15 Oct. 1851.
Jose Milla, Esplicacion de algunos de los conceptos contenidos en el discurso pron. en el salon del Supremo
Gobierno de Guatemala el 15 de set. de 1846 (Guatemala, 1846). For a later, liberal, comment on
the discourses of these years, see Lorenzo Montufar, Discurso pron. _ el 15 de set. de 1877
(Guatemala, 1877) ; and Lorenzo Montufar, Discurso, San Jose de Costa Rica, 15 Sept.
1870, in Discursos del Dr. Lorenzo Montufar, Rafael Montufar (ed.) (Guatemala, 1922), 127.
For a Mexican example see Estevan Valay de Gonzalez, Discurso pron. el la funcion cvica
del 16 de set. en la villa del Carmen, departamento de Yucatan, in an 1842 newspaper
(title unclear), preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional, Coleccion Lafragua 137.
Antonio G. del Palacio, Oracion cvica pron. en el palacio del gobierno de Durango _ el da 16 de set. de
1846 (Victoria de Durango, 1846), pp. 78. Or see Eugenio Vargas, Discurso pron _ en la plaza
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the conquering race, it is ridiculous to place ourselves in the category of the

conquered race , remarked another Mexican conservative speaker, in a critique of previous years discursos cvicos.50
Conservative speakers thus oered their listeners an alternative ancestry ;
rather than being the sons of Montezuma or Atahualpa, they were the sons of
Spain. In a speech for 16 September 1850 that drew particular praise from
conservative newspapers the Mexican poet Jose Ignacio Esteva praised the
conquest for having brought Christianity to Mexico, and for ending Aztec
cannibalism and human sacrifice. Refusing to condemn the conquistadors, he
proudly proclaimed that we are all sons or grandsons of the conquistadors,
and our patria is likewise the daughter of [Spain].51 Another Mexican orator
declared of Spain : I love it as the country of my progenitors, as the mother of
the Pelayos, Gonzalos and Guzmanes, and I love it too _ dare I say it? as the
patria of Hernan Cortes, that man as great as any who have existed.52 The
conquistadors, rather than the Indians, were thus our ancestors. Similar
views were expressed in 1853 by a conservative orator in San Salvador, who
explained that in his speech he would not insult the Spanish as they were our
fathers and our brothers, to whom El Salvador owed the origins of our
civilisation .53 Since Spanish Americans were Iberias children, to view Spain
with anything other than gratitude and veneration would be to spit in the face
of our fathers.54 Conservatives thus explicitly rejected the idea that they
were the descendants of the pre-conquest Indians, and oered instead an
alternative, Iberian genealogy.
50
51
52
53
54
de armas de Toluca el da 27 de set. de 1858 (Toluca, 1858), pp. 67 ; and Joaquin Mara de Castillo
y Lanzas, Discurso pron. en la Alameda de Mexico el 15 de set. de 1863 (Mexico, 1863), p. 6.
P. Ruiz, Editorial, El Pajaro Verde, Mexico, 16 Sept. 1863.
Jose Ignacio Esteva, Discurso pron. en la plaza principal de la H. Veracruz el 16 de sept. de 1850, in
Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciadas en varios puntos de la republica, pp. 767. See also El
Universal, Mexico, 30 Sept 1851 ; Jose Ignacio Esteva, Discurso pron. en la plaza principal de la
Heroica Ciudad de Veracruz el da 27 de set. de 1853 (Veracruz, 1853) ; and Vargas, Discurso
pron. _ en la plaza de armas de Toluca, p. 10.
Palacio, Oracion cvica, pp. 78. Or see Jose del Castillo Negrete, Discurso que en la aniversario de
nuestra independencia nacional del da 27 de set. de 1854 pron. en Guadalajara (Guadalajara, 1854);
Pomposo Patino, Discurso pron. el da 16 de set. de 1856 en la ciudad de Pachuca (Puebla, 1856), p. 8;
Teofilo Carrasquedo, Arenga cvica pron. _ en la noche del 26 de set. de 1857, ciudad de
San Francisco de la Alta California, El Siglo XIX, Mexico, 11 Nov. 1857 ; and the proMaximilian speeches of : Francisco de Garay y Texada, Discurso patriotico pron. el da 16 de set. de
1863 en la ciudad de Toluca (Toluca, 1863) ; Manuel Fernandez de Cordoba, Discurso pron.
en el gran teatro nacional la noche de 15 de set. de 1863 (Mexico, 1863), p. 9; Juan N. Pastor, Discurso
pron. en la Alameda de esta capital el da 27 de set. de 1863 (Mexico, 1863), p. 6; and Ruiz, Editorial,
El Pajaro Verde, Mexico, 16 Sept. 1863.
Jose Ignacio Zaldana, Discurso pron _ el 15 de Set. de 1853 (San Salvador, 1853?). See also
Manuel Gomez Pedraza, Oracion encomiastica que _ dijo el da 16 de set. de 1842 (Mexico, 1842),
p. 5; and Jose Ignacio de Anievas, Discurso patriotico pron. en la Alameda de Mexico la manana del
16 de sept. de 1854 (Mexico, 1854).
Milla, Esplicacion de algunos de los conceptos. See also Herrera, Sermon, pp. 4, 7, 156.
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Accompanying such ringing declarations of Spanish ancestry was a defence

of the conquest as the source of Spanish American civilisation. The conquest,
as one Mexican speaker put it, was a progressive movement towards
Christianity and civilisation.55 Conservatives insisted that Spains conquest
of the Americas was providential; Columbus himself was Gods agent:
Columbus was needed and God sent Columbus, announced Herrera in his
1846 independence day sermon.56 During the colonial period the Spanish
transmitted to us their religion, their language, their habits and their customs : they
shared with us their knowledge and their industry, their legislation was our legislation,
with the modifications required by our circumstances _ we must confess that our
social order owes everything to Spain.57
Indians themselves ought to be grateful to Spain.58 More dramatically,

Mexican conservatives presented independence as the consummation of the
conquest. The conquest and independence are brothers in one cause : the
cause of humanity. Humanity therefore blesses these two events, and I too,
who here bless independence, must be just, as I am in my heart: I also bless the
conquest , editorialised the conservative paper El Universal on 16 September
1851.59
Not all conservatives went so far as to describe independence as a continuation of the conquest, but all agreed that independence was compatible
with their Spanish, Catholic heritage. In the Guatemala of Rafael Carrera, for
example, conservative priests developed an intricate theological justification
for independence that presented Central Americas 1821 Acta de Independencia as a special covenant between God and Guatemala in which
Guatemala promised to preserve its Catholic heritage. This view was expressed par excellence in the patriotic orations delivered by the Guatemalan
cleric Juan Jose de Aycinena in the years between 1837 and 1864. Aycinena and
his followers thus interpreted independence as a method of preserving the
55
56
57
58
59
Ramrez de Arellano, Oracion cvica en la Alameda de Mexico, 8. See also Castulo Barreda, Oracion
cvica pron. en la noche del 15 de set. de 1853 (Mexico, 1853) ; Jose Sanchez Facio, Oracion cvica pron.
en la plaza de armas de la h. ciudad de Veracruz _ el 16 de set. de 1854 (Veracruz, 1854) ; and Ruiz,
Editorial, El Pajaro Verde, Mexico, 16 Sept. 1863.
Herrera, Sermon, pp. 4, 7, 156.
Bernardo Pinol, Discurso pron. en la Santa iglesia catedral el 15 de set. de 1849 (Guatemala, 1849).
Or see Manuel Echeverra, Discurso [ pron.] _ el 15 de set. de 1844 (Guatemala, 1844).
Sanchez Facio, Oracion cvica.
This was the view put forward in the Plan de Iguala itself. See Plan de Iguala, 24 Feb. 1821,
Leyes Fundamentales de Mexico, 18081985, Felipe Tena Ramrez (ed.) (Mexico, 1985), p. 114;
Rafael Espinosa, Alocucion _ [ pron. el] 27 de sept. de 1842 (Mexico, 1842), p. 6; Pastor,
Discurso pron. en la Alameda de este capital; and Manuel Gutierrez, Discurso pron. en la vila
de Tacubaya el 16 de set. de 1864 (Mexico, 1864), pp. 123. The quotation is from El Universal,
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faith which we inherited from our fathers.60 Whether or not independence

was seen as a completion of the conquest, conservatives agreed that it was in
no way a revival of pre-conquest indigenous empires. This is fortunate, since,
had Indians really considered independence a vindication, Spanish Americas
civilised population would undoubtedly have perished at the hands of
savage ferocity.61 The same thing would probably happen, conservatives
predicted, if liberals were to distribute their indianesque discursos cvicos to the
indigenous population.62
These two versions of history the indianesque and the conservative
accorded the pre-Columbian past very dierent positions within their regions
history. Advocates of the indianesque embraced pre-conquest history as an
essential component of independent identity, while conservatives rejected it as
a barbarous time preceding the arrival of true civilisation. Regardless of the
position of the pre-Columbian past, however, neither view oered much
scope for indigenous participation in the national present. On the contrary,
advocates of the indianesque often believed that contemporary Indians had
been so debased by the suerings inflicted on them by the Spanish as to be
unable to participate in civic life.63 The indianesque thus provided a version
of history that was simultaneously inclusive and exclusive. By incorporating
the indigenous past into the national historical narrative, it valorised preColumbian civilisation, while at the same time separating contemporary
Indians from a pre-conquest legacy which they were too downtrodden to
appreciate or understand. As Enrique Florescano remarked apropos Mexico :
by integrating indigenous antiquity into the notion of homeland, the Creoles
expropriated their own past from the Indians and made of this past a legitimate
and prestigious history of the Creole homeland.64 The conservative version of
history likewise accorded the indigenous population an ambiguous place at the
national banquet. If civilisation, and therefore history, had arrived from Spain
with the first conquerors, then the pre-Columbian period constituted nothing
60
61
62
63
64
Juan Jose de Aycinena, Discurso religioso pron. _ el 15 de set. de 1855 (Guatemala, 1855). See also
Juan Jose de Aycinena, Discurso pron. _ el 15 de sept. de 1837 (Guatemala, 1837) ; Francisco
de Paula Garca Pelaez, Discurso pron. el 15 de set. de 1856 (Guatemala, 1856) ; Juan Jose de
Aycinena, Discurso religioso pron. _ el 15 de sept. de 1858 (Guatemala, 1858) ; and Juan Jose de
Aycinena, Discurso religioso pron. _ el 15 de sept. de 1864 (Guatemala). For a discussion of
Aycinenas idea of covenant, see Sullivan-Gonzalez, Piety, Power and Politics.
Herrera, Sermon, pp. 4, 7, 1516 ; Perez-Rayon, The Capital Commemorates Independence,
in Beezley and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico ! Viva la Independencia !, p. 155; and El Pas, Mexico,
16 Sept. 1900.
Ruiz, Editorial, El Pajaro Verde, Mexico, 16 Sept. 1863.
For a preliminary discussion of this see Earle, Creole Patriotism and the Myth of the
Loyal Indian .
Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth and Time in Mexico from the Aztecs to Independence (Austin,
1994), p. 192. Or see Pagden, Identity formation, p. 73.
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more than a time of darkness, and was certainly not a source of national
identity. On the other hand, since the colonial period was not viewed as three
centuries of barbarism, but rather a time of increasing civilisation and gradual
improvement, the Indians were not considered to have emerged from it fatally
scarred. Indians might thus participate in civic life insofar as they embraced
Christianity and the other civilising benefits brought by the Spanish, and
provided they renounced the savagery of their pre-conquest ways, a process
that, in the view of the Peruvian conservative Ricardo Palma will result not
from legislation but rather the passage of time.65
The Liberal Search for Origins
In 1888 a discussion took place in Buenos Aires among several of the capitals
leading intellectuals about whether to replace the historic Piramide de Mayo
with a new statue. The pyramid, a marble structure erected in what is now the
Plaza de Mayo in honour of the 1810 May Revolution, had undergone several
face-lifts in the preceding decades, and in 1888 some thought it was due for
another. The liberal historian Vicente Fidel Lopez maintained that the existing
marble pyramid was a tasteless mishmash unworthy of the heroic event it
purported to commemorate. He called for the structure to be replaced by
something more elevating. Andres Lamas, another liberal writer and politician,
on the other hand, defended the pyramid as an historic monument which
ought to be preserved intact. Discussion of the pyramid led inevitably to a
consideration of the meaning of the May Revolution itself. Despite disagreeing
about the appropriate fate of the pyramid that commemorated it, both Lopez
and Lamas agreed that independence (or more particularly, the May Revolution in Buenos Aires) marked Argentinas point of departure, _ the first
day of its own life, of the national life of the former colony: on this day begins
its history, its own exclusive history.66
The idea that 1810 marked the birth of not only the Patria but also of history
had by the late nineteenth century become standard among the Porteno
intelligentsia. The May Revolution was the epoch in which we were born into
the life of nations, as the historian and sociologist Ernesto Quesada put it in
1895.67 This view had begun to emerge during the war of independence itself,
65
66
67
Ricardo Palma, Cartas a Pierola (sobre la ocupacion chilena de Lima) [1881], (Lima, 1964), p. 20.
See also Mark Thurner, From Two Republics to One Divided: Contradictions of Postcolonial
Nationmaking in Andean Peru (Durham, NC, 1997), p. 12.
Andres Lamas, Essay, 12 Nov. 1883 ; Andres Lamas, Essay, 1880s; and Vicente Fidel
Lopez to Andres Lamas( ?), Buenos Aires, 30 May 1888 ; all in Archivo General de la
Nacion, Buenos Aires, Coleccion Andres Lamas 2659 (leg. 56).
Ernesto Quesada, Alocucion patriotica pron. en la fiesta annual del Ateneo, 25 May 1895
(Buenos Aires, 1895). Or see Nicolas Avellaneda, Centenario del Congreso de Tucuman, Discurso
pron. el da 9 de julio de 1916 ( Tucuman, 1916).
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but was developed with particular clarity by the Generation of 1837.68

Members of the Generation of 1837 advanced this interpretation of the May
Revolution in many works, such as the large body of commemorative material
written for the May festivals held in 1844 during the federalist siege of
Montevideo. Unlike their enemy Rosas, these writers stressed that independence was a creative act that brought into existence something entirely new
an American idea, as Jose Rivera Indarte put it, the birth of the Patria.69
The poet Esteban Echeverra expressed this view clearly in his 1844 independence day speech.70 The May Revolution was, he felt, the triumph of an
idea: the idea of democracy. Independence thus resulted from the necessary
collision between the progressive and democratic idea of the May Revolution,
and the retrograde and counter-revolutionary idea of colonialism (with Rosas,
at that moment laying siege to Montevideo, representing the still-living idea of
colonialism). Like Indarte he employed religious imagery to describe the idea
of Mayo. While Indarte had referred to the gospel of democracy , Echeverra
described Mayo as a mysterious trinity that becomes one and is incarnate in
democracy .71 For this reason he viewed the traditional celebrations of May 25
as highly unsatisfactory. The homage hitherto rendered to the May Revolution has been more material than moral , he complained. Worse, previous
independence-day festivals had a strongly pagan aspect. Echeverra did not
specify whether this consisted solely of the intoxicated appreciation of the
fireworks and raes that comprised the traditional May festival, or whether
he also regarded as pagan the inclusion of children dressed as Indians ; it
is tempting to speculate that he had both aspects in mind.72 In any event,
68
69
70
71
72
For an early example see El Censor, Buenos Aires, 29 May 1817; and for a useful discussion
of the Generation of 1837, see Nicolas Shumway, The Invention of Argentina (Berkeley, 1991).
Speech in honour of 25 May, Jose Rivera Indarte, 1844, in Archivo General de la Nacion,
Buenos Aires, Coleccion Andres Lamas 2649 (leg. 46); and Jose Rivera Indarte, Melodias a
mayo, Cantos a mayo, leidos en la sesion del Instituto Historico-Geografico Nacional el 25 de mayo de 1844
(Montevideo, 1844), 5980. See also Miguel Cane, Fiestas mayas, 1844, in Archivo General
de la Nacion, Buenos Aires, Coleccion Andres Lamas 2649 (leg. 46).
Esteban Echeverra, Mayo y la ensenanza popular en la Plata (Montevideo, 1845) ; and Esteban
Echeverra, El 25 de mayo (1844), Cantos a mayo, p. 16.
See also Juan Bautista Alberdi, Dogma de la Republica Argentina, in 25 de mayo : testimoniosjuicios-documentos (Buenos Aires, 1968), p. 93. Such mysticism continued to characterise
Argentine patriotic discourse. For later examples see Proclama de la Comision Nacional de
la Juventud pro-centenario, Buenos Aires, 1910 ; Commemorative booklet on centenario del
ejercito de los Andes (Buenos Aires, 1916); and programme of Comision Nacional Paso de
los Andes, (1916), all in Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires, coleccion Dardo
Rocha 3001.
For an evocative account of the plebeian delights of the 1822 fiestas mayas, see Bartolome
Hidalgo, Relacion que hace el gaucho Ramon Contreras a Jacinto Chano de todo lo que
vio en las Fiestas Mayas de Buenos Aires en 1822, Bartolome Hidalgo, Cielitos y dialogos
patrioticos (Buenos Aires, 1967).
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the Generation of 1837 rejected the indianesque view of independence as a

vindication of the Inca empire: The dispute between the Indians and the
conquistadors is quite dierent from that that arose in 1810 between Spaniards
and creoles [espanoles europeos y espanoles americanos], explained Indarte, oering
a corrective to the version of history presented in the independence-era
Porteno festivals.73
If the May Revolution marked the birth of the Patria, who were its
parents? A poetic answer was provided by Echeverra; the founding father
was not one of the heroes of independence such as San Martn, but rather
Spain itself. America, he explained, was a virgin beloved by the creator.
Spain, with lascivious eyes gazed on her beauty _ and for three centuries she
was his slave . Echeverra thus converted the conquest into an amorous
episode.74 The fruit of this relationship was the Patria: Spain, in the person of
the conquistadors, was the father, America, the beautiful slave, the mother.
Indians, in this conception, played no active role whatsoever; the procreating
force was Spanish. The same idea was expressed even more clearly in another
of the poetic outpourings composed for the 1844 Montevideo civic festivals.
For extra emphasis its author made Spain both father and mother : Our
valiant but unjust fathers/Enslaved the Indians _ /America in her breast will
engender/A hundred Spains who will emulate the deeds/Of their common
mother.75 Spain, as another writer put it decades later, was their loving alma
mater .76
The Generation of 1837 thus advanced an interpretation of the past that
diered strikingly from the indianesque views propagated in Buenos Aires
during the war of independence. Unlike the patriots of 1810, they did not view
the May Revolution as the continuation of any previous indigenous empire.
May, to them, represented the birth of a democratic idea nourished by
its Iberian heritage. Comparable views were advocated in Guatemala during
73
74
75
76
Jose Rivera Indarte, Melodias a mayo, Cantos a mayo, p. 81.

This is exactly how the conquest was presented in European painting and poetry of
the period. See Jaime Delgado, Hernan Cortes en la poesa espanola de los siglos XVIII y
XIX, Revista de Indias, vol. 9 (1948), p. 434; and Jose Tudela, Hernan Cortes en los
grabados romanticos franceses, Revista de Indias, vol. 9 (1948).
Rivera Indarte, Melodias a mayo, pp. 6970. Even the anti-Spanish Sarmiento acknowledged Spains paternity (or maternity): Spain thus reproduced itself in America : to
blame it for having caused intentionally the ills it has bequeathed us would be the same as if a
young black man should blame his equally black mother for conceiving the infamous and
sinister plan of giving birth to a black . Indeed, for Sarmiento, Argentinas problems arose
precisely because of its Spanish heritage. See in particular Domingo Faustino Sarmiento,
Review of Investigaciones sobre el sistema colonial de los espanoles [1844], in Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento, Obras, vol. 2 (Buenos Aires, 1885), p. 218; and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento,
Conflicto y armona de las razas en America [1883] (Buenos Aires, 1915), p. 232.
Quesada, Alocucion patriotica pron. en la fiesta anual del Ateneo ; and Jose E. Uriburu,
Brindis, El Mercurio de Valparaso, Valparaso, 22 Sept. 1890.
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the period of liberal rule inaugurated in 1871 by Justo Rufino Barrios. In

the civic festivals held in Guatemala City to mark 15 September the ocial
orators hailed Iberia as Guatemalas true parent. This view was expressed
clearly by the 1885 ocial orator, who argued that independence completed
the creative process begun with the conquest, itself described as an epic
struggle between the heroic conquered race and the noble lineage of the
conquistadors :
Independence matched the conquest. For this reason the poem of American liberty is
the only one worthy to continue the poem of the discovery and colonisation _ Columbus, were he alive, would say to Cortes, Pizarro and Balboa, I discovered this world so that you could conquer it , and the latter would speak thus to
Bolvar : we battled with the Indian in order that from his blood and ours would be
born sons such as you, to proclaim from the heights of Chimborazo the liberty of
America.77
Note that the outcome of the encounter between the Indian and the Spaniard
is a creole (Simon Bolvar), and not a mestizo. America was thus presented as
the creole ospring of two heroic (in this case, masculine) races : the Indian
and the Spanish. Other speakers, similarly arming Guatemalas Hispanic
heritage, viewed Spain as a mother. Addressing Spain, the 1897 orator announced: today, with the passage of time, which has extinguished ancient
hatreds and healed old wounds, we do not hesitate to recognise you as our
mother and we Latin Americans can say how much and how truly we love
you . Celebrating independence, he asserted, should not require him to hurl a
thousand hurtful accusations against the motherland.78
Liberalism in both Argentina and Guatemala thus came to embrace Spain as
their nations historic parent. In Argentina this process was already well under
way in the 1840s, at a time when liberals in Central America and Mexico were
still denouncing the conquest as a barbarous invasion. Despite the similarity of
liberal thought in Argentina, Central America, and Mexico on issues such as
the need for foreign immigration, local versions of liberalism diered dramatically in the chronology of their rapprochement with the Spanish past.
77
78
Manuel Valle, Discurso oficial pron. _ el 15 de set. de 1885 (Guatemala, 1885). For a similar
example from Chile, see Antonio Santibanez Rojas, Discurso pron. _ a la distribucion
de premios a los alumnus de las escuelas publicas el 18 de set., El Telefono, Melipilla,
23 Sept. 1883.
Enrique Martnez Sobral, Discurso Oficial, 15 Sept. 1897 (Guatemala, 1897). See also Eduardo
Goez, Discurso oficial pron. _ el 15 de sept. de 1909 (Guatemala, 1909) ; Virgilio Rodrguez Beteta,
Discurso oficial, 15 Sept. 1910 (Guatemala, 1910) ; Federico Vielman, Discurso pron. en el salon de
recepciones del Palacio del Poder Ejecutivo el da 15 de sept. de 1914 (Guatemala, 1914); Ernesto
Mencos, Discurso oficial pron. _ el 15 de sept, de 1916 (Guatemala, 1916). For a more critical view
of the Spanish parent, see Ramon Salazar, Discurso pron. _ el 15 de sept. de 1881 (Guatemala,
1881) (but see also Rafael Spnola, Discurso pron. _ en el Instituto Agrcola de Indgena,
15 March 1896, in Rafael Spnola, Artculos y discursos (Guatemala, 1896), pp. 12540).
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In Mexico as in Guatemala, it was only in the 1870s that liberalism began to

show a renewed interest in its Iberian heritage, which expressed itself clearly in
the civic orations delivered on celebrations of 16 September. The chronology
of rapprochement with the Spanish past was thus quite separate from the
rapprochement with Spain itself. Mexico, for example, re-established diplomatic links with Spain many decades before it re-established links with its
Spanish heritage.79
During the early decades of the Mexican Reforma the discursos cvicos delivered by radical liberals continued to denounce the suering inflicted during
the colonial period, sometimes with a veiled eroticism similar to that employed
by Echeverra.
Imagine a beautiful woman, her garb in tatters, her face sad, her hair loose, and her
head bowed, with her chained hands dripping blood _ It is it virgin Anahuac, young
America, the goddess of the New World [who cries] free me ; I am the slave of the
kings of Spain .80
Speakers continued to celebrate the achievements of the Aztecs, but sometimes also criticised Aztec tyranny (other indigenous groups held very little
interest for patriotic orators, although one speaker praised the Chichimecs as
Mexicos Araucanians). Cuauhtemoc made regular, but not ubiquitous,
appearances in patriotic verses dedicated to 16 September.81 Denunciations of
79
80
81
See Mark Van Aken, Pan-Hispanism: Its Origins and Development to 1866 (Berkeley, 1959).
Francisco de P. Beltran, Discurso pron. _ el da 16 de set. de 1862 en Tehuacan, El
Monitor Republicano, Mexico, 30 Sept. 1862. See also J. M. Rodrguez Altamirana, Discurso
pron. en el teatro de Iturbide de Queretaro la noche del 15 de set. (Puebla, 1856), pp. 34 ; Juan N.
Mirafuentes, Discurso para la noche de 15 de set. de 1862 (Mexico, 1862); Luis Perez Castro, Arenga
cvica pron. _ la noche del 15 de set. de 1867 en el teatro de esta ciudad (Oaxaca, 1867), p. 3; Jacobo
Mercado, Oracion cvico pron. el 16 de set. en la plaza de Cartagena de la ciudad de Tacubaya, in Discursos
cvicos pronunciados en las festividades del 15 y 16 de set. de 1867 (Mexico, 1867), p. 65 ; Francisco T.
Gordillo, Discurso cvico pron. _ en el aniversario de la independencia mexicana la noche del 15 de set. de
1869 en el teatro nacional de esta capital (Mexico, 1869), p. 4; Benigno Arriaga, Discurso,
Discursos y composiciones poeticas que se leyeron en la festividad de set. del presente ano (San Luis Potos,
1869) ; Pedro Sosa y Ortiz, Discurso pron. _ en la plaza de la constitucion de San Juan Bautista de
Tabasco la tarde del 16 de set. de 1870, Benson Library, Discursos Cvicos, serv. 25, Reel 313;
Francisco E. Trejo, Discurso cvico pron. en Colima la noche del 15 de set. de 1872 (Colima, 1872) ;
Manuel M. Palacios, Discurso pron. _ la noche del 16 de set., Programa de la Junta Patriotica
para las festividades cvicas de los das 15 y 16 de set. de 1872 (San Luis Potos, 1872); and Manuel de
Olaguibel and Julian Mantiel y Duarte, Discurso pron. en la Alameda de Mexico _ y prosa
leida _ en el aniversario del 16 de set. de 1875 (Mexico, 1875), p. 11.
For Cuauhtemoc, see Benito Juarez, Discurso que _ pronuncio el da 16 de sept. de 1840 (Oaxaca,
1840) ; Juan Jose Baz, Discurso cvico pron. _ en la capital del Estado de Michoacan el da 16 de set. de
1859 (Morelia, 1859); Juan Antonio de la Fuente, Discurso _ para la tarde del 16 de set. de 1860
(Veracruz, 1860) ; Manuel Azpiroz, Discurso cvico pron. en la ciudad de Chihuahua el 16 de set. de
1866 (Chihuahua, 1866) ; Ricardo B. Suarez, Discurso cvico (Veracruz, 1867) ; Pedro Morales,
Discurso que pronuncio _ la tarde del 16 de set. de 1868 (Monterrey, 1868) ; Arriaga, Discurso ;
Francisco Domnguez, Discurso pron. _ en la noche del 15 de set. de 1869 (Colima, 1869?) ;
Gregorio Varela, Arenga cvica pron. en el portal del palacio del estado de Oaxaca el 16 de set. de 1869
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Spanish rule began to be accompanied, however, not only by calls for the
vindication of the Aztecs, but also by assertions of several entirely dierent
heritages. The Aztecs continued to be our fathers; and the insurgents of 1810
remained the descendents of Cuauhtemoc, but to this family tree were joined
other, newer branches. Mexicans, liberal orators discovered, were also
Hidalgos sons. Sometimes they were the sons of Cuauhtemoc and Xicotencal, of Hidalgo and Morelos , and sometimes, in a more streamlined
genealogy, simply of Hidalgo. 1810 was thus a date of birth, as well as of
rebirth.82 It was the period of Independence, rather than the age of the Aztecs,
82
(Oaxaca, 1869) ; Manuel Leal del Castillo, Discurso pron. _ en el jardn del cantador de
Guanajuato la tarde del 16 de set. de 1870, Discursos y poesas patrioticas pronunciados los das 15 y
16 de set. de 1870 (Guanajuanto, 1870) ; and Josefina Garca Quintana, Cuauhtemoc en el siglo XIX
(Mexico, 1977).
For Mexicans as sons of the Aztecs, see Mirafuentes, Discurso para la noche de 15 de set. de 1862,
p. 4; Andres Trevino, Discurso cvico que _ pronuncio _ en la plaza de Hidalgo, el 16 de set. de 1869
(Puerto de Matamoros, 1869) ; Jose Mara Romero, Discurso cvico pron. _ en el teatro Arbeu la
noche del 15 de set. de 1875 (Mexico, 1875), p. 3 ; Francisco Sosa, Discurso pron. el 16 de set. de 1886
(Mexico, 1886), 5 ; Beltran, Discurso pron. _ el da 16 de set. de 1862; Vicente Rodrguez
Villanueva, Arenga popular pron. el da 16 de set. de 1867 _ en la ciudad de Cuautla, Morelos, in
Discursos cvicos pronunciados en las festividades del 15 y 16 de set. de 1867 (Mexico, 1867), p. 78;
Eufemio Mendoza, Discurso cvico pron. _ en el teatro Degollado en [el] _ aniversario del glorioso
grito de la independencia nacional (Guadalajara, 1868), p. 5; Ignacio Altamirano, Discurso pron. en la
Alameda de Mexico el da 17 del actual, in Discursos cvicos pronunciados en las festividades del 15 y 16 de
set. de 1867 (Mexico, 1867), p. 53 ; Francisco Domnguez, Discurso pron. _ en la noche del 15 de set.
de 1869 (Colima, 1869 ?); Jose de la Luz Palafox, Discurso cvico que en la solemnidad del 16 de set.
pronuncio (Puebla, 1867) ; and Morales, Discurso que pronuncio _ la tarde del 16 de set. de 1868.
For the Chichimecs, see Eufemio Mendoza, Discurso cvico pron _ en el teatro Degollado en
[el] _ aniversario del glorioso grito de la independencia nacional (Guadalajara, 1868), p. 4; and, for
the significance of the Araucanians as an insurgent icon, Simon Collier, Ideas and Politics of
Chilean Independence, 18081833 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 194213.
Sons of Cuauhtemoc and _ Hidalgo is from Jacome Jacome, Discurso pron. _ en el teatro
principal la noche del 15 de sbre de 1869 (Puebla, 1869). See also Miguel Gomez Flores, Discurso
cvico pron. la noche del 15 de set. de 1856 _ en uno de los teatros de la capital (Mexico, 1856) ; Miguel
Buenrostro, Oracion patriotica pron. en la Alameda de Mexico _ el 16 de set. de 1856 (Puebla, 1856),
p. 27 ; Marcelino Burelo, Discurso pron. en la plaza de armas de Tabasco _ el da 16 des set. (Puebla,
1856), p. 12; Francisco de P. Campa, Discurso, Discursos y poesas pronunciados en el coliseo de
esta ciudad el 16 de set. del presente ano (Zacatecas, 1857); Ignacio Ramrez, Discurso cvico pron.
el 16 de set. de 1861 ; Discurso pron. en el puerto de Mazatlan la tarde de 16 de set. de 1863
en solemnidad de la independencia de Mexico, and Discurso pron. en el Teatro Nacional la
noche del 15 de set. de 1867 por encargo de la Junta Patriotica, all in Ignacio Ramrez, Obras,
2 vols, (Mexico, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 136, 152, 158, 177; Ignacio Galindo, Discurso pron. en la
festividad nacional del 16 de set. (Monterrey, 1867); Francisco Contreras, Discurso pron. _ en el
Panteon de San Miguel el 17 de set. de 1869 (Oaxaca, 1869) ; un alumno del Colegio Mexicano,
Discurso cvico pron _ el 15 de set. de 1871 (Mexico, 1871), p. 9 ; and El Imparcial, Mexico, 17 Sept.
1900. This is not to say that no one prior to the Reforma dated the birth of the patria to 1810.
See, for example, Barquera, Oracion patriotica; and Luis Rivera Melo, Discurso cvico pron.
en la Alameda de Mexico el da 16 de sept de 1850, in Discursos pronunciados el 16 de sept. de 1850
en la Alameda de Mexico (Mexico ?, 1850?).
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which liberal writers began to compare with the great achievements of Greek
and Roman antiquity. Morelos ! Which hero of antiquity would have been
greater than Morelos, had he fought with him? , asked one academic orator in
1850s Mexico. One day this Iliad will find its Homer! , exclaimed another.83
In this way Mexican liberals, like the Argentine Generation of 1837, began to
describe independence as the time when history began: When else should
Mexican chronology begin but 16 September 1810 ?.84 It was that view that
Francisco Cosmes challenged when he claimed that Mexicos true beginning
was in 1492, not 1810. This insurgent genealogy was melded with the older
indianesque version through the medium of progress ; civic festivals began to
present Mexican history as a process of gradual development from the preconquest days to the pinnacle of progress achieved under Porfirio Daz.
Together these various stages form parts of our grandiose whole , explained
General Riva Palacio in 1871.85 Such a vision of Mexican history was represented symbolically in the floats organised for the 1883 independence-day
celebrations in Mexico City, which depicted successive stages of Mexican
history, culminating in floats dedicated to progress and industry.86
During the Porfiriato the conservative appreciation of Mexicos Hispanic
heritage began to be incorporated into ocial liberal ideology alongside these
other genealogies. (Reassertions of Mexicos Spanish heritage also drew on the
distinction that liberals had for decades been making between the Spain of the
conquistadors and modern, liberal Spain.)87 Independence became simply a
phase in Spains historical evolution. Criticism of the conquest diminished
dramatically and patriotic orators at independence day celebrations began to
take a new (for Mexican liberals) interest in Spain. Oh Mother Spain, your
83
84
85
86
87
See Juan Jaquez, Oracion cvica pron. en el palacio del gobierno de Durango _ el da 16 de sept. de 1850,
in Composiciones en prosa y verso pronunciados en varios puntos de la republica, p. 157; and J. M. Roa
Barcena, Discurso cvico pron. en Jalapa el 16 de set. de 1848 ( Jalapa, 1848). The quotations are
from Francisco Granados Maldonado, Elogio funebre que en memoria de los heroes de la independencia mexicana pronuncio _ en la Alameda de Mexico el da 27 de sept. de 1850, in Discursos
pronunciados el 27 y 28 de sept. de 1850 en la capital de Mexico (Mexico ?, 1850?), p. 44 ; and Mendoza,
Discurso cvico pron. _ en el teatro Degollado, p. 9.
Atanasio Canedo, Discurso cvico _ [pron.] en esta capital _ el da 16 de sept. de 1843 (Guadalajara,
1843) (for an early assertion of this view). Or see Joaqun M. Alcalde, Discurso pron. en el
teatro de Iturbide la noche del 15 de set. de 1861, Discursos pronunciados en la fiesta cvica del ano
de 1861 en la capital de la Republica (Mexico, 1861).
General Riva Palacio, Discurso pron. _ en la capital de la Republica el 16 de set. de 1871 (Mexico,
1871), p. 8. Or see Manuel Carsi, Discurso pron. en el gran teatro de Guerrero la noche del 15 de set. de
1885 (Puebla, 1885), p. 9.
16 de set. de 1883 : los carros alegoricos, Benson Library. See also William Beezley, New Celebrations of Independence : Puebla (1869) and Mexico City (1883), in Beezley and Lorey
(eds.), Viva Mexico ! Viva la Independencia !, p. 137.
See Juarez, Discurso que _ pronuncio el da 16 de sept. de 1840 ; Enciso, Oracion cvica ; Daniel Casas,
Discurso cvico pron. en Jalapa el 16 de set. de 1849 ( Jalapa, 1849); Fuente, Discurso _ para la tarde del
16 de set. de 1860 ; and Morales, Discurso que pronuncio _ la tarde del 16 de set. de 1868.
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Rebecca Earle
great shadow is present in all our history; to you we owe civilisation, intoned
Justo Sierra in 1883.88 While in previous decades Mexicans had been told in
such speeches that they possessed real or metaphorical indigenous blood, now
they were declared the sons of Spain. Mexicos religion, language, customs,
and indeed the blood that circulates in its veins are unimpeachable witnesses
of Spains influence, explained another patriotic orator.89 For this reason the
organisers of one festival in 1874 were pleased that the event passed without a
single muera directed at Spain.90
The eect of the pan-American liberal rapprochement with Spain was that
by the end of the nineteenth century liberal and conservative civic festivals
came to resemble each other in terms of their view of the past. In 1892 both
conservative Colombia and liberal Guatemala celebrated the quatercentenary
of Columbuss arrival in the Americas, an event that marked the start of what
in the 1820s had been described in both regions as three centuries of tyranny.
To be sure, there were some dierences between the celebrations in these two
countries. Most notably, the Guatemalan festivities, unlike their Colombian
analogue, included a large contingent of Indians, who participated on the
ocial order of the national government.91 Guatemalas liberal regime had
not entirely shed its attachment to the indianesque, which stipulated some sort
of indigenous dimension to civic festivals, although the eect of obliging the
Maya to celebrate the arrival of Columbus was that the Guatemalan commemoration bore closer resemblance than its organisers perhaps appreciated
to a colonial festival, with its catechised Indians celebrating with flutes
and whistles their happy subjugation. The republican civic festival had come
full circle.
88
89
90
91
Justo Sierra, El Da de la Patria, 16 Sept. 1883, Justo Sierra, Obras completas, vol. 9 (Mexico,
1991), pp. 1089. Or see Vicente Riva Palacio, Discurso pron. en las festividades cvicas del 16 de set.
de 1867, in Discursos cvicos pronunciados en las festividades del 15 y 16 de set. de 1867 (Mexico, 1867),
p. 27 ; Manuel Parada, Discurso cvico pron. en el teatro nacional _ la noche del 15 de set. de 1876
(Mexico, 1876), p. 8; Agustn Verdugo, Discurso pron. _ en la plaza de la constitucion el da 16 de
set. de 1879 (Mexico, 1879), 11; Sosa, Discurso pron. el 16 de set. de 1886, p. 5; Reynaldo Morales,
Discurso patriotico que en conmemoracion del LXXVII aniversario del grito de independencia pronuncio _ en San Luis Potos (San Luis Potos, 1887) ; Manuel G. Revilla, Dos discursos cvicos
(Mexico, 1891), p. 9 ; and Alonso Rodrguez Miramar, Discurso pron. en el parque de la Alameda
de Mexico el 16 de sept. de 1892, in Fiestas de septiembre de 1892 (Mexico, 1892), p. 11.
Demetrio Montesdeoca, Oracion cvica pron. _ el 16 de set. de 1862 en el salon de la plaza de la
constancia (Guanajuato, 1862?).
Corona cvica consagrada a la memoria de los heroes de la independencia ( Toluca, 1874).
Frederic Martinez, Como representar a Colombia ? De las exposiciones universales a la
Exposicion del Centenario, 18511910, Museo, memoria y nacion: Mision de los museos nacionales
para los ciudadanos del futuro, Memorias des Simposio Internacional y IV Catedra Anual de
Historia Ernesto Tirado Restrepo (Bogota, 2000), pp. 32530; and Antonio Batres
Jauregui, La America Central ante la historia, 2 vols (Guatemala, 191520), vol. 1, p. 441.
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801
The Centenary of Independence: the Return to the Mother (Land )

The centennial of independence from Spain, celebrated in the years between
1910 and 1924, prompted the formation of many patriotic committees and
considerable governmental expense. Naturally, celebration of the heroes of
the wars of independence occupied an important position in these commemorations ; across Spanish America governments sponsored the publication of eulogising biographies and document collections. In Mexico the
Comision Nacional Centenario organised festivities and sponsored literary
and scientific competitions aimed at commemorating independence, while in
Argentina an analogous commission considered renaming Tierra del Fuego
the Territorio de Mayo .92 The many lyrics submitted to the Mexican commissions Centenary Hymn competition, which give an excellent snapshot of
conventional patriotism in 1910s Mexico, reveal the extent to which the
discourse of Porfirian history had penetrated Mexicos population. Of the
hundred-odd verses submitted, nearly three-quarters mentioned Hidalgo, a
third mentioned Morelos, and a quarter mentioned Juarez. Cuauhtemoc,
regarded by some historians as a key figure in Porfirian constructions of the
past, was mentioned in a mere nine hymns, although a quarter referred to
Mexico poetically as Anahuac.93 The general tenor of these songs confirmed
the success of the view that Mexicans, as one entrant put it, are the sons/of
Hidalgo, Juarez and Diaz .94 Genealogical metaphors thus continued to
dominate expressions of patriotism. The Comision found all these entries
defective in one or another way, but did feel able to select a winner in its
competition for a Symphonic and Choral Poem to independence. The
successful composer was Manuel Caballero, whose Verse and Prose Poem
included a dialogue between Patria, History, Progress and Caudillo. The
92
93
94
Comision Nacional del Centenario, caja 2, and Instruccion Publica y Bellas Artes, caja 363;
both in Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico; Tenorio Trillo, 1910 Mexico City: Space
and Nation in the City of the Centenario ; and Proposals of Comision Pro-Centenario, 1906?,
Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires, Coleccion Dardo Rocha 3001. For commemorative volumes, see Manuel Chueco, La Republica Argentina en su primer centenario, 2 vols,
(Buenos Aires, 1910) ; Adolfo Leon Gomez, Centenario de la Independencia : el tribuno de 1810
(Bogota, 1910) ; Emiliano Isaza and Lorenzo Marroqun (eds.), Primer centenario de la independencia de Colombia, 18101910 (Bogota, 1911) ; Eduardo Poirier (ed.), Chile en 1910 : Edicion del
centenario de la independencia (Santiago de Chile, 1910) ; and Luis Urbina, Pedro Henrquez
Urena and Nicolas Rangel (eds.), Antologa del Centenario : Estudio documentado de la literatura
mexicana durante el primer siglo de independencia (18001821) (1910) (Mexico, 1985).
El Himno del Centenario: producciones presentadas al segundo concurso que convoco la Comision Nacional
del Centenario de la Independencia de Mexico (Mexico, 1910).
El Himno del Centenario, entry 14. Many entries to the various competitions are contained in Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico, Galeria 5, Comision Nacional del
Centenario, caja 2.
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Rebecca Earle
dialogue celebrated Spain ( Honour to Spain who lived within us! ) while also
making a brief mention of Mexicos Aztec past.95
Mexico was not alone in seeing the centenary as an opportunity to commemorate Spain. Across Spanish America these festivals hailed Spain as a
historic mother, and included substantial peninsular participation. Alfonso
XIIIs aunt, the Infanta Isabella, headed the ocial delegation to Argentina,
the Marques de Polavieja led the delegation to Mexico (where he awarded
Porfirio Daz the Order of Charles III), and the grandson of the royalist
general Pablo Morillo led the Spanish delegation to Venezuela.96 The inclusion
of a relation of this arch-enemy of Spanish-American independence in the
independence-day celebrations suggests the extent to which the discourse of
the civic festival had altered over the past century. The Colombian festivities
likewise made sure to include no tactless references to royalist wartime
atrocities ; a commemorative stamp showing six patriots executed by the
Spanish in 1816 was withdrawn so as not to oend Spain, and speakers were at
pains to ascribe independence to Colombias Iberian element.97 Across the
continent governments erected statues to Spain, installed commemorative
plaques on colonial buildings, and renamed streets in honour of Isabel la
Catolica.98 These acts were intended to commemorate the origins of the close
cordiality that today exists between noble Spain and the people of the
Americas.99 The colonial period, no longer a time of darkness, was instead
hailed as the indestructible foundation of our collective existence , the source
of civilisation.100 As a Chilean commemorative volume put it, America was
bound to Spain by inextinguishable aections, inerasable atavisms and ties of
race, language, religion and origin .101
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
Manuel Caballero, Independencia : poema en prosa y verso (Mexico, 1912), in Archivo General de
la Nacion, Mexico, Instruccion Publica y Bellas Artes, caja 363.
Pike, Hispanismo, p. 195.
Mario Arango, Augusto Peinado, and Juan Santa Mara, Comunicaciones y correos en la historia de
Colombia y Antioquia (Santafe de Bogota, 1996), p. 286 ; and Primer centenario de la independencia
de Colombia, Isaza and Marroqun (eds.), p. 151.
See Tenorio Trillo, 1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario, pp.
1878 ; Pike, Hispanismo, p. 195 ; Isaza and Marroqun (eds.), Primer centenario de la independencia
de Colombia; and Proposals of Comision Pro-Centenario, 1906 ?, Archivo General de la
Nacion, Buenos Aires, Coleccion Dardo Rocha 3001.
The quote refers specifically to Venezuela. See Pike, Hispanismo, p. 195.
Isaza and Marroqun (eds.), Primer centenario de la independencia de Colombia, viii, pp. 2933,
703, 123, 142, 151; and Centenario de la independencia de la Provincia de Tunja (Tunja, 1913),
pp. 46, 51. See also Eduardo Talero, El condor nuevo, Chile en 1910, Poirier (ed.), pp. 1689.
Homenaje a Espana, Chile en 1910, Poirier (ed.), 453. Colombian speakers gloried in the
continued cultural colonialism suggested by such armations : We have ceased to be
subjects of the Phillips and the Ferdinands, but we have renounced neither our discipleship
of the gospel, nor our vassalage to Cervantes and Jovellanos, to Rioja and Quintana . (Rafael
Mara Carrasquilla, Discurso, in Isaza and Marroqun (eds.), Primer centenario de la independencia de Colombia.) See also Monsenor Miguel de Andrea, Oracion patriotica de accion de
gracias por el exito de las fiestas del centenario (Buenos Aires, 1910).
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803
The uniform acceptance of Spain accompanied varied attitudes towards the

indigenous past. In Guatemala, the 1921 centenary speech by the noted
historian Antonio Batres Jauregui incorporated the pre-Columbian period
into a grand sweep of history that merged the pre-conquest, colonial and
independence periods into a single narrative (much as the five volume Mexico a
traves de los siglos did in Mexico).102 The Peruvian government erected a statue to
Tupac Amaru II, the leader of the vast eighteenth-century indigenous uprising.103 In 1910 Mexico, the historic parade that formed part of the capitals
celebration of the centenary marked the three most important eras of Mexican
history: conquest, colonial and independence, excluding the pre-Columbian.
The conquest was depicted not by a bloody slaughter, but by the friendly
meeting between Moctezuma and Cortes, with a cast of nearly 1,000 Indian
warriors, priests, and virgins. The festivities also saw the inauguration of
several displays at what is now the Museo Nacional de Antropologa which
gave pride of place to the piedra del sol the so-called Aztec calendar stone
and other monumental pre-Columbian remains.104 In Argentina, mention of
the indigenous past was more muted, in keeping with the tendencies established by the Generation of 1837, whose views on Argentinas ancestry
provided inspiration for the 1879 conquista del desierto in which the
Pampas indigenous inhabitants were crushed. The sumptuous centenary
volumes produced by Manuel Chueco made virtually no mention of the
current indigenous population, although Argentina itself was described as a
nation formed by the union of Spanish conquistadors and Indian women.105
Argentina, the ospring of this encounter, was a criolla, a beautiful Creole; as in
102
103
104
105
Antonio Batres Jauregui, Discurso oficial, 15 Sept. 1921 (Guatemala, 1921). Batres nonetheless
viewed independence as a triumph of Guatemalas Spanish heritage. See Batres Jauregui, La
America Central, vol. 2, 6045 ; and Antonio Batres Jauregui, Guatemala, Chile en 1910,
Poirier (ed.), p. 260.
Karen Sanders, Nacion y tradicion. cinco discursos en torno a la nacion peruana, 18851930 (Lima,
1997), p. 169. The 1921 Primer Congreso Indgena Tawantinsuyu received government
support as part of the commemoration of the centenary, and the Quechua drama Ollantay
was performed during Cuzcos celebrations (Marisol de la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos : The
Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 19191991 (Durham, 2000), pp. 8892, and Cesar Itier,
Le Theatre moderne en Quechua a Cuzco (18851950). E`tude et Anthologie, The`se de
doctorat de nouveau regime, Universite de Provencve, Aix-Marseille I (1990), p. 63.
Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, 1910 Mexico City : Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario,
pp. 1846 ; and Enrique Florescano, Etnia, estado y nacion : Ensayo sobre las indentidades colectivas
en Mexico (Mexico, 1996), p. 449. The Aztec Calendar stone began to appear regularly on
commemorative medals from 1885, while school texts mentioned it as evidence for the high
level of civilisation achieved by the Aztecs. See Frank Grove, Medals of Mexico, 3 vols (1970),
vol. 3, nos. 2312, 287, 418, 467; and Manuel Payno, Compendio de historia de Mexico para el uso
de los establecimientos de instruccion publica [1870], (Mexico, 1902), pp. 701. The ocial celebrations also included a trip to the ruins of Teotihuacan.
Chueco, La Republica Argentina en su primer centenario, vol. 1, 5. Of the hundreds of photographs in these two sumptuous volumes, only one, on the antepenultimate page of
the second volume, showed an Patagonian Indian, labelled remains of a dying race.
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Rebecca Earle
1885 Guatemala, the outcome of racial mixing was the creole, not the mestizo.
The special centenary edition of La Nacion agreed that the indigenous past had
contributed a tiny drop of Quechua blood to Argentine creole culture, which
gave it a special je-ne-sais-quoi and added to its beauty. However, the paper
noted, if Indian culture has not been completely destroyed by the conquest, as
some mistakenly believed, it was nonetheless destined to be superseded, as the
Indians themselves recognised: the innocent and ignorant Indians could
admit that the conquistadors belonged to a superior race created to dominate
them .106 Indians, past or present, figured in Bogotas centenary celebrations
only long enough for a speaker to declare that the indigenous race was
annihilated in America .107
Spanish America thus entered its second century of independence largely
reconciled with its Spanish heritage. Even Mexico, often considered atypical
for its inclusion of the pre-Columbian period into its historia patria, shared with
the rest of Spanish America an increased interest in its own hispanidad. Spanish
Americas attitude towards pre-conquest history remained as complex as it had
been in 1820. During the war of independence the emergent creole political
elite had baptised itself the heir to the pre-Columbian past. In the early decades
of the twentieth century the relationship between the governing elite and
Indian population continued to be mediated through a tenuous form of
metaphorical heritage. The aspects of pre-Columbian culture preserved in
archaeological ruins and art were embraced as part of the national heritage
from Mexico to Argentina, but that heritage was isolated from contemporary
Indians. In becoming part of the national heritage, it lost its connection to
contemporary Indians. Mexican independence-day speakers thus praised the
ruins at Uxmal as revealing the high level of civilisation achieved by preconquest peoples, while at the same time noting that all traces of this civilisation had vanished. The Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula were evidently not
the heirs to Uxmals legacy ; that honour was reserved for the Creole state, as
through the conquest the Indian lost his own civilisation, without gaining
Europes.108 The Maya remains at Palenque could similarly be labelled sacred
106
107
108
(vol. 2, 588). For the relationship between the Generation of 1837 and the conquest of the
desert, see Shumway, The Invention of Argentina.
Roberto Payro, Criolla, in La Nacion, Buenos Aires, special centenary edition (25 May
1910), p. 171.
Ramon Gomez Cuellar, Discurso, Primer centenario de la independencia de Colombia, 195; and
Martnez, Como representar a Colombia ?, pp. 32530. Provincial celebrations occasionally mentioned pre-Columbian civilisations ; see Jose Alejandro Ruiz, Excelsior,
Centenario de la independencia de la Provincia de Tunja (Tunja, 1913), p. 52.
Juan A. Mateos, Discurso oficial pron. en el aniversario del 16 de set. de 1810 (Mexico, 1872), pp. 79;
and El Siglo XIX, Mexico, 3 Feb. 1881. Or see Manuel de Olagubel and Julian Mantiel y
Duarte, Discurso pron. en la Alameda de Mexico _ y prosa leda _ en el aniversario del 16 de set. de
1875 (Mexico, 1875), p. 7.
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805
ruins by the same Guatemalan independence-day orator who declared that

Guatemalas Maya population rendered nugatory the consolidation of
nationality .109 The existence of an archaeologically interesting indigenous
past thus contributed, alongside Spanish Americas Iberian heritage, to the
formation of a national past whose distinctive contours were described in the
independence-day celebrations studied here. But it would be wrong to see this
uniquely as a process of increasing inclusion, or of cultural and historical
mestizaje. While some scholars have argued that the reality of mestizaje has
for centuries made the mestizo the quintessential Spanish American cultural
hero, the speeches studied here suggest that the combination of Iberian
and indigenous heritages typical of many forms of late nineteenth-century
nationalism did not result in a new, mixed identity.110 On the contrary,
celebration of Spanish Americas Hispanic heritage was heir to a conservative
vision of history which dated civilisation from the conquest, thereby explicitly
excluding the pre-Columbian past. Praise for the indigenous past as a source
of national identity was usually premised on the rejection of the indigenous
present, and the severing of any links between the Indian population and the
pre-Columbian past. Or, to put it the other way, the Patria born of the
encounter between the indigenous and Iberian pasts was not mestizo, but
creole.
109
110
Jose Gonzalez Campo, Discurso oficial, 15 Sept. 1929 (Guatemala, 1929).

For the mestizo as a cultural hero, see Gerald Martin, Journeys Through the Labyrinth : Latin
American Fiction in the Twentieth Century, (London, 1989), chapter 1: Myths of the Mestizo
Continent . For a splendid discussion of the ways in which celebration of mestizaje could
exclude contemporary Indians, see Jerey Gould, Vana Ilusion! The Highland Indians
and the Myth of Nicaragua Mestiza, 18801925, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol.
73 :3 (1993) ; and Jerey Gould, Gender, Politics, and the Triumph of Mestizaje in
Early Twentieth Century Nicaragua, Journal of Latin American Anthropology, vol. 2:1 (1996).
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Padres de La Patria' and The Ancestral Rebeca Earle

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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 34, 775805 f 2002 Cambridge University Press

Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

El Siglo XIX, Mexico, 20 Sept. 1894. A padre de la patria is a founding father.

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whether they were the sons of Hidalgo, of Cortes, or perhaps of Cuauhtemoc,

Eric Hobsbawn, Introduction : Inventing Traditions, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

were competing originary moments, ranging from the distant pre-Columbian

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July, the date of the Congress of Tucumans 1816 declaration of independence,

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

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The use of religious festivals as a model was sometimes recognised explicitly;

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

In addition to celebrating the ongoing colonial relationship between Spain

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Ocampo, Las ideas de un da, pp. 1517.

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

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The passing of these great civilisations was presented in independence-day

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

Orators lamented the defeat by the conquistadors of our ancestors the

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

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the conquering race, it is ridiculous to place ourselves in the category of the

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

Accompanying such ringing declarations of Spanish ancestry was a defence

Indians themselves ought to be grateful to Spain.58 More dramatically,

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faith which we inherited from our fathers.60 Whether or not independence

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

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but was developed with particular clarity by the Generation of 1837.68

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

the Generation of 1837 rejected the indianesque view of independence as a

Jose Rivera Indarte, Melodias a mayo, Cantos a mayo, p. 81.

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the period of liberal rule inaugurated in 1871 by Justo Rufino Barrios. In

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

In Mexico as in Guatemala, it was only in the 1870s that liberalism began to

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

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Padres de la Patria and the Ancestral Past

The Centenary of Independence: the Return to the Mother (Land )